


Rusted Wheel

by Annerb



Category: Stargate: SG-1
Genre: Adventure, Episode: s06e06 Abyss, F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-02
Updated: 2010-08-01
Packaged: 2017-10-18 10:41:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 31,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/188103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annerb/pseuds/Annerb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things were strained enough between them before they ended up prisoners on a desert planet. Only then there's an unexpected side effect to the technology keeping them trapped. This is helplessness neither thought they would ever have to experience.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Older teens for language, violence, and adult themes (reference to torture, death, sexuality, and suicide).  
> 

Day One

Sam wakes slowly, swimming gradually to the surface. Cracking her eyes open, she sees a girl kneeling over her. She gives Sam a wide-eyed stare, getting to her feet and disappearing out a cloth-covered doorway, a cry following in her wake. "She awakens!"

Sam winces against the volume of the girl's voice, shifting her body up off the floor. She glances around the unfamiliar space around her. It's a small cubicle of space with little more than the thin pile of blankets stretched out under her to form a crude bed. The only other furnishings in the cramped space are a rickety shelf and a ceramic urn that she can guess serves as the facilities. There is one rough-hewn wall with a window at her back, and thick canvas sheets hung from the ceiling forming the other three walls.

Turning her attention to herself, Sam notes that she's still in her fatigues. Predictably, her weapons are gone, as are her radio and knife. A quick pat down reveals that she isn't injured. She feels a few random items in pockets here and there, a ration bar, bandages, a pen. Obviously whoever disarmed her had been in too much of a hurry to be thorough.

Getting to her feet, Sam pulls back the canvas doorway the girl disappeared through. On the other side, a group of four women sit at the center of a large room that is lined on all sides with small chambers like the one Sam has left, like a rudimentary hospital. Or an asylum, she thinks wryly.

A few of the women look up as Sam enters, but just as quickly away. When no one seems inclined to stop her, she heads out the first door she finds.

It takes Sam's eyes a moment to adjust to the piercingly bright light outside, blinking against it and raising one hand to shade her eyes. Stretching in front of her is a flat, open dirt area lined on both sides with more buildings like the one she just left. They are all uniformly the worn, grey color of untreated wood left to the mercy of harsh sunlight.

Sam feels a trickle of sweat work its way down her neck. The heat is extreme, but with the slight hint of relenting that speaks to the lateness of the hour. Everything has a slight orange cast to it, as if the sun is a bit close, or at the end of its cycle.

"Hello?"

Sam turns to see a worn woman of perhaps fifty standing nearby. She wears a simple blouse and skirt of some practical fabric and has a face that shows signs of faded beauty, thick brown hair with streaks of grey pulled back into a simple bun. The young girl who had been with Sam when she woke stands behind the woman, half-hiding.

"All is well, Beth," the woman says. "You may return to your work."

Beth flashes her a relieved smile and scurries across the compound into a different building.

"I am Hannah," the woman says.

"Are you in charge here?" Sam asks.

The question seems to confuse her. "No, I am not the warden," she says. "May I ask your name?"

"Sam," she supplies, deciding to play along for now. "Hannah, right?" The woman nods. "Can you tell me what this place is?"

Hannah is now looking at Sam like she's speaking gibberish, but seems willing enough to share. "This is Parramatta," she says like that should mean something.

Sam paces a step away, looking at the buildings again. "I was on Methos," she says, more to herself than Hannah. She'd been taking a tour of the city with Colonel O'Neill, hadn't she?

"I am not familiar with that place," Hannah says.

Sam shoves the fragmented thoughts away. 'Where' honestly isn't her first priority. "I had friends with me. Three men."

Hannah shakes her head. "You were alone when they brought you."

Sam glances at the sun where it's nearing the rocky horizon. "What about a Stargate?"

"A Stargate?" Hannah echoes.

Sam drops to the ground, drawing a circle in the dirt with her finger. "It's a giant metal ring like this. About two times the height of a man." She looks up at Hannah. "Have you ever seen anything like that?"

"No," she says, shaking her head. "I have not."

Sitting back on her heels, Sam sighs. "How does one…travel here?"

Hannah's brow furrows. "By wagon train, of course."

"Of course," Sam says. At least that means there may be some way out of here, wherever here is. "And how often does the wagon train come?"

"Only when there are prisoners to be transferred from the courthouse."

Prisoners? Sam thinks she would remember a trial or a courthouse. All she remembers is Mr. Shifty Eyes and someone jumping her from behind.

" _We need to make them disappear."_

The memory is fuzzy and half-formed. The harder she tries to latch on to it, the more indistinct it becomes. She lifts a hand to her head. There isn't any evidence of a head injury, but she isn't quite sure how else to account for her lack of memory.

Pushing back to her feet, Sam turns in a slow circle, eyes scanning her surroundings. Beyond a small cluster of sad, worn clapboard buildings, she can't see anything but sand and rock outcroppings. She'd be hard pressed to think of an environment more stellar opposite to the cosmopolitan city she'd just been in. She glances at the sun again, it's angry red light. Is this even the same planet?

"How far to the nearest city?" Sam asks, thinking that there must be something more sophisticated than this place.

Hannah's lips press into a thin line, her expression stern. "Many, many weeks by foot through dangerous terrain. It is impossible. Besides which, we are not permitted to leave the camp." She points to a low fence at least three hundred yards outside the camp, just beyond a shallow stream where a few women are filling buckets with water. "We cannot pass the boundary."

The fence is little more than flimsy pieces of wood with rope strung between them. Sam's pretty sure a stiff breeze could knock it over, let alone a grown woman, so she has to assume some other unseen barrier maintains the boundary.

She's about to ask Hannah to clarify what she means when the loud clatter of something like a cowbell echoes throughout the compound. The sleepy mood surrounding the buildings shatters at the sound, women pouring out of various buildings and disappearing just as quickly into others.

"The men return," Hannah says, picking up her skirts and hurrying back into the dormitory Sam just left.

Sam doesn't follow her, rather craning her neck to look down the worn path she is belatedly realizing is a road of some sort. Past the edge of camp Sam can make out wagons nearly swallowed in the distant haze of kicked up dust.

Sam steps back into the shadow of the nearest building's doorway to observe the incoming caravan.

About ten wagons pulled by pairs of some sort of enormous domestic animal come down the road. Each wagon is lightly guarded. She counts no more than one or two armed guards per wagonload of about a dozen men. They stand out, dressed in darker colors and seemingly better groomed than everyone else. The only armaments she sees are handguns and lassos or whips of some kind hanging from their belts.

The prisoners, on the other hand, don't wear anything close to a uniform, each man's attire unique in both color and cut. The only unifying element is the thick layer of grit that covers each of them and what looks like a dark collar of some sort encircling their necks.

Sam scans each wagon as it pulls past, looking through the throng of men for familiar profiles. She has no idea if the rest of SG-1 has been brought here or not. In the second to last wagon though, she catches sight of Colonel O'Neill, his own eyes actively scouring the camp.

When the wagons come to a stop, one of the guards grabs the Colonel's arm, pushing him off the back and holding him there. She can see that the Colonel's hands are bound in front of him with handcuffs, a guard holding a gun against his side as if expecting trouble. The guards don't seem to be giving any of the other male prisoners a second glance, and Sam wonders if the Colonel has done something to earn greater paranoia. The rest of the men jump off the wagons and disperse, most of them being met by a woman offering a beverage.

From the far end of the path, a man exits one of the nicer kept buildings. He's wearing a fancy black suit that is somehow completely untouched by the pervasive dust of this place, and carries what looks like an old, leather-bound ledger and a wooden box.

"That is the warden," Hannah supplies, reappearing by Sam's side with a cup of water in her hand.

The warden flips through the ledger until settling on a page and squinting down at it. "Samantha Carter, prisoner 4382-b, you will approach the wagon!" he calls out.

"Go, quickly," Hannah advises, giving Sam a push before walking up to one of the prisoners from a different wagon and giving him her cup.

Sam steps out into the light. The Colonel's eyes find her immediately, darting quickly over her as if looking for evidence of injury. She nods to indicate she's fine.

One of the guards crosses over to grab her arm as she approaches, pulling her to a stop in front of the warden.

The warden doesn't even look up at her approach, still reading from his book. "Jack O'Neill, prisoner 4382, you have been convicted of high crimes against the government of Dinan and have been sentenced to a life term of hard labor."

Lovely.

"I think there's been some sort of mistake," the Colonel says, body alert, but voice still congenial as if hoping they might be able to talk their way out of this.

The warden ignores the Colonel, instead nodding to the guards.

They are both shoved down to their knees so they are facing each other. Their eyes meet for a beat of communication, the Colonel shaking his head minutely. Considering the number of guards, their lack of weapons, and the Colonel's handcuffs, it seems pretty clear that fighting their way out of this isn't an option. They will just have to see where this goes for now.

The warden is taking something out his box, handing it over to a guard. It turns out to be a thing, dark collar, exactly like the ones she had seen on the other prisoners.

"Doesn't quite go with my outfit," the Colonel quips as they place it around his neck, the clasp clicking and turning before seamlessly disappearing back into the metal.

Sam gets her own collar next, hers slightly bulkier. Feeling it settle around her neck, heavy and clumsy against her collarbone, she begins to think that maybe they should have taken their chances fighting.

The warden steps up to the Colonel, holding a device, something alien looking and incongruously advanced in comparison to everything else Sam has seen so far. There's a beep like the sound of a barcode being read as the warden holds the device up to the Colonel's collar.

Behind her, a guard fists his hand in Sam's hair, pushing her head down to expose the back of her neck.

"Hey," the Colonel protests. "What are you-."

She can't see what they are doing, just hears another beep followed by pressure on the back of her neck.

Sam gasps as the collar around her neck tightens, followed by the unmistakable pinch of something penetrating her skin. It feels like the guard is drilling into her spine and she bites her tongue, but doesn't manage to completely muffle the scream building in her throat. When he lets go, her vision swims and she sways forward, both hands pressing into the dirt in front of her as she barely manages to save herself from slamming face first into the ground.

"Carter?" Colonel O'Neill demands. "Carter!"

She hisses against another spike of pain radiating down her neck, but forces herself to breathe deeply a few times, her vision clearing. "Sir," she manages to say.

"What the hell did you do to her?"

There's a scuffle as they drag the Colonel back up to his feet, but Sam is in no position to help. She's too busy trying not to throw up.

"Listen well," the warden says. "This woman is now your hearthmate. She is bound to you. If you should be foolish enough to brave the desert in an attempt to escape, she will pay the price in your stead. If you think to try to take her with you, know that her collar will not permit it. Her life shall continue only so long as she remains within the boundaries of the camp. There is no escape. Do you understand?"

Sam's not sure the warden sticks around to hear the Colonel's response. Beneath her hands, the ground is pitching and rolling and she closes her eyes tightly, trying not to submit to the dizziness. The next thing she knows, the Colonel is kneeling next to her, his hands unbound, the warden and guards having left them to their own devices.

Apparently he isn't a threat anymore.

"Carter?" he says, his hand tentative on her shoulder.

She doesn't answer, but feels him tense as a shadow falls across them both.

"Water," a voice says. Someone presses a cool hand to her forehead and Sam looks up to see Hannah holding out a cup, only now noticing the matching collar around her neck. "It will pass, I promise. Try to take a little water if you can."

Sam dutifully sips from the cup, and her stomach feels a bit more settled, even as her head continues to throb.

"Can you remember the way to your quarters?" Hannah asks.

At the moment, she's having a hard time remembering her own name.

"I will show you the way," Hannah says when she doesn't answer. "Can you walk?"

"I've got her," the Colonel says, putting his arm around her back and helping her to her feet.

"Sir-," Sam protests, but she doesn't manage to get the warning out before her vision blacks out around the edges. She will not pass out. She will not-.

* * *

 _The Methian markets are impressive, housed in a large glass and steel structure somewhat like a greenhouse. Sam cranes her neck to peer up at the layering of balconies above. The ceiling must be a good hundred feet off the ground._

 _Their guide is smiling and giving them a lesson about the building, the first of its kind in their rapidly growing industrial city. For the Methians, commerce is practically a religion, the spires of trade marking their city rather than temples. They are friendly, and open, and the only thing you can do to piss them off is to try to undercut their trade system. A capital offense._

" _That certainly is a lot of windows," Colonel O'Neill observes wryly._

 _Their guide, apparently unaware or uncaring of the edge of sarcasm in the Colonel's voice, launches into an in depth explanation of the process used to manufacture the structure._

 _Outwardly, the Colonel seems relaxed, and Sam is glad to see it._

 _Pausing at one of the trade booths and letting the two men walk ahead, Sam smiles at the young woman behind the counter. She skims the selection of jewelry laid out on the table, mostly earrings and trinkets, the green stone popular on this planet sparkling here and there from various settings._

 _It's a small wooden box that catches Sam's attention for some reason, her hand hovering over it. There is a strangely beautiful, twisting symbol carved on the lid. She has no idea what language it might be from or what it might mean, but something makes her stop, one finger pressing down on the lid._

" _What is this?" she asks._

 _There is a flicker of something in the trader's eyes as she takes in Sam's clothing, her eyes darting to the Colonel and their guide beyond her. "Nothing, ma'am," she says, pulling the box back. "A mistake."_

 _Sam frowns at her. "Really, I'd like to-."_

" _Please," the woman says, beginning to look tense. "Do not-."_

 _A man steps out of the shadows behind the booth. "Is there a problem?"_

 _Sam's instincts tell her to let it go, to walk away, but she finally recognizes it, the tingle in her fingers. Her eyes narrow._

 _The man's hand closes on her arm._

 _Too late._

 _  
_

* * *

When Sam wakes again, she is back in the small canvas cubicle lying on the thin pile of blankets. The light streaming in the small window has shifted, a weak white she suspects must be moonlight. Lifting her head to look around the room, she feels a twinge of pain shoot down her spine. Her vision swims again, and she lies back, sucking in a few deep breaths.

"Colonel?" she asks once she's sure she's not going to embarrass herself again.

"Carter," he says, his face appearing over hers. "How do you feel?"

Like someone shoved an ice pick into the back of her neck. "Better."

He eyes her like he doesn't believe her, but doesn't say anything. Feeling a bit more settled, Sam struggles up onto one elbow, and he helps her sit up.

"There's water, and some food that woman brought us," he says.

"Hannah," Sam supplies, pressing a hand to her forehead.

"Yeah." He passes her a bowl of what looks like stew with actual recognizable meat and vegetables. For prison food, it's not so bad, even if it's lukewarm and kind of congealed. They've certainly had worse. "You should eat. I survived it."

She doesn't mistake the order in that and dutifully picks up the rough-hewn spoon. The Colonel is quiet while she forces herself to eat and by the time she's done the nausea is almost completely gone. If only she could say the same for the headache.

"Any idea where we are, Carter?"

"Parramatta," she says, remembering what Hannah told her.

"What?" he asks, the word clearly not meaning any more to him that it had to her.

"That's the name of the prison," she clarifies, setting her bowl aside.

The Colonel leans back against the outer wall. "See, now the last thing I remember was a market or something." He rubs the back of hand against his forehead. "Did some guy…grab you?"

"Yeah," she says, wracking her brain for details. "It's really fuzzy after that." Not helped by the fact that her head is absolutely killing her.

"Here," he says, passing her two pills. She considers protesting, knowing they should conserve their supplies, but he's got his most obstinate expression on his face so she saves her breath, tossing back the pills with the last of her water. "So you don't remember getting here?"

"No," she says. "I woke up here. You?"

He shakes his head. "I woke up in the wagon bed with all the men."

"No sign of Teal'c or Jonas?"

The Colonel shakes his head. "I think we have to assume they are still back in the city."

Well, that's something at least. It leaves some small hope of rescue. Except none of this makes sense. "Something just doesn't add up, sir. Hannah said this prison is fourteen days by wagon train from the main courthouse."

The Colonel's eyebrows lift, one hand rubbing at to his chin covered with what looks like barely more than a day's growth. "You think we'd remember fourteen days on a wagon."

"Exactly. My memory is a little fuzzy, but it seems to me that we were in the city only yesterday, or possibly the day before that. But _fourteen_ days?"

"What are you thinking?"

She glances out the small window. "That we didn't get here by wagon. But also that we're probably not on Methos, sir." It's not just the level of technology here that tells her that.

"Why?" he asks, the possibility apparently not anymore welcome to him than it is to her.

"The sun. I'm pretty sure it's not the same." Red giant if she isn't mistaken. It explains the slight orange cast to everything, the way the sun felt a bit too close this afternoon.

"Great. And I haven't seen any sign of a gate."

Sam shakes her head then immediately regrets it. She sucks in a deep breath. "Hannah had no idea what I was talking about when I asked her about a gate," she says. "What about you, sir? Where were you today?"

"Mines," he says. "Naquadah as far as I can tell. I guess that's the labor part of my life sentence."

"Naquadah," she repeats, feeling a memory stirring at the back of her mind. It slips away, everything way too hazy right now.

"Funny that they've never heard of a gate, but they're bothering to mine naquadah."

Sam nods. It's certainly something to give more thought to. When her head has stopped spinning maybe.

Taking her bowl, the Colonel gestures at the small pallet of blankets. "Get some rest, Carter. I'll take first watch."

She doesn't have to be told twice, lying back down. With the meal heavy in her stomach and her head still spinning, she's out almost as soon as she lies down.

* * *

 _It's their third day on Methos, this extended diplomatic mission that Sam suspects is meant to be a cakewalk, something to ease the battered, strained SG-1 back into mission mode. She thinks maybe it would have been kinder to give them something a bit more strenuous. It would give them all less time to sit and stew._

 _The Colonel appears in the breakfast room, Teal'c and Jonas greeting him._

" _Ready for our fascinating tour of the markets, Teal'c?" the Colonel asks, swiping a piece of toast from the table._

" _Actually, Colonel," Jonas pipes up. "I was hoping Teal'c could help me with some of these trickier translations today over at the academy."_

 _The Colonel doesn't even blink, switching gears like it's no big deal. "Sure, whatever. Guess that means you're stuck with me today, Carter." He turns towards her, but as usual these days, she feels like his gaze doesn't quite connect._

 _Sam dutifully smiles, even though she gets the sense that he's the one feeling stuck. She's been on a lot of Jonas babysitting duty lately, which normally wouldn't bother her if it didn't feel quite so deliberate on the Colonel's part._

" _Yes, sir," she says, getting up from the table and falling into step next to him to leave the boarding house. She glances back, catching Teal'c watching them as they leave._

 _He nods to her, and Sam has the insane thought that he orchestrated this. Maybe he's fed up with the tension too._

" _Carter?"_

 _Sam turns, the Colonel watching her with that bland, distant expression she's come to expect from him. "Sorry, sir," she says, catching back up._

 _They head towards the markets in silence._

 _  
_

* * *

Day Two

They are woken by the sound of a bell ringing, something similar to the one that announced the return of the men the previous evening. A few moments later, a guard unceremoniously sweeps back the curtain hanging in their doorway, whacking a wooden club against the posts as he passes.

Sam's eyes snap open at the intrusion, but she immediately regrets the movement as the light sears into her retinas. She groans, squeezing her eyes back shut.

"How are you feeling?" the Colonel asks.

It's too early in the morning to come up with a lie. "Like I've recently been acquainted with the bottom of a tequila bottle," she complains.

"That good, huh?" he asks.

There's a timid knock on the post that seems way too polite to be the guard. Sam braves opening her eyes to look. Hannah is standing in their doorway.

"Good morning, Sam." Hannah doesn't quite look at the Colonel. All of her words are carefully addressed to Sam, and Sam really, really doesn't like what that implies.

"Good morning, Hannah," Sam says, pushing up into a sitting position, trying to ignore the protest of her entire spine.

Hannah holds a hand out to stop her movement. "I came to suggest that you rest this morning," she says. "I will return at midday to show you around and explain your duties."

Sam is so not going to argue with that. "Okay, thanks," she says, trying not too worry too much about what her 'duties' might turn out to be.

Hannah nods, giving her a brief flinch of a smile before retreating from the doorway without giving the Colonel so much as a glance.

"Lucky you," the Colonel says, tossing her a ration bar. "I get to go break my back in a mine while you have breakfast in bed."

Sam catches the bar, feeling her stomach roll at the thought of food. Lying back down, she touches her collar, her fingers brushing against the tender flesh at the back of her neck. "I'd happily to trade, sir," she says.

He stares at her for a beat, just long enough for her to think she must look nearly as bad as she feels. "Yeah. On second thought, I'll take the mines."

She tries to be a good sport, to laugh at his attempt at humor, because he's _trying_ at least, but something about this situation is overwhelming. This was supposed to be yet another cakewalk mission, something to ease them all back in.

But since when did intentions ever matter?

"Men to the wagons!" someone shouts.

The Colonel is still watching her with that expression again, like he wants to ask her something but is way too smart to actually do it. "Try to get a feel for the place today if you can," he says instead. "I don't want to be here a day longer than we have to be."

"Yes, sir," she says, watching him leave.

* * *

Hannah returns when the bells ring midday. A few more hours of sleep and another dose of painkillers have gone a long way towards making Sam feel more human.

The food in the dining hall is the same hearty, but simple fare they had the night before, and the room is full of boisterous chatter as women eat and move about the room. They seem rather cheerful for prisoners.

Hannah gets straight down to business, cataloging Sam's skills. From her questions, the prison is beginning to sound more factory than jail yard.

"Can you weave?" Hannah asks.

"Weave? Uh, no."

"Spin?" she asks, and Sam doesn't think she imagines the thread of exasperation in Hannah's voice. A dozen questions in to the interrogation, Sam has the feeling she's beginning to look useless.

Somehow she doesn't think her ability to calculate stellar drift and hit a moving target from seventy yards is going to be valued here. "No, sorry."

"Then you will work in the laundry." Hannah says this like it is a fate she has tried her hardest to save Sam from. Wonderful.

"Where do you work?" Sam asks.

"At the loom," Hannah says, a bit of pride sneaking into her voice. Sam watches her callused, thick fingers as she pulls apart a piece of bread. "Your hearthmate," she says, sliding Sam an assessing look. "He is…a good man?"

Sam puts down her spoon, surprised by the change in subject, especially since Hannah hasn't shown the Colonel enough attention to even look at him thus far. "Yes," she says, wondering if this explains Hannah's reticence around the Colonel. Maybe she's just scared of him. "He's a good man."

Hannah nods, looking relieved. "And he cares for you?"

Sam thinks that is a bizarre question, unless there is more to this hearthmate thing than they know about. This could get awkward really fast. "Is that important?"

The bells ring, announcing the beginning of the second work shift. Hannah gives her a smile. "All will be well," she says, patting the back of Sam's hand before picking up her dishes to clear them away.

Sam doesn't feel particularly comforted.

Hannah drops Sam off at a large building near the stream on the outskirts of the compound. Inside is an enormous courtyard. One half is full of large copper tubs on open fires, the other half almost completely obscured by huge sheets of cloth in a rainbow of colors hung on a complex system of slats.

Hannah passes Sam off to a blunt, broad woman by the name of Hattie. Sam had briefly wondered, in light of Hannah's mode of dress, whether her own uniform would be out of place, but Hattie's got a pair of trousers on, a thick rope cinched in about her ample waist. Glancing around the laundry, Sam sees that the women seem equally dressed in pants and skirts, many with heavy skirts hitched up on the sides well above their knees. It relaxes the small knot of anxiety that Hannah's careful modesty and reticence had created. The last thing Sam needs is to stand out anymore than she already does.

Hattie leads Sam through a no-nonsense explanation of her duties, pointing out the various stations. "Here is where the cloth is washed and pressed after it is dyed."

Sam can't help but notice that the women on laundry duty seem to fall into two distinct groups: the freeloading bullies and the quiet, sickly looking women, some appallingly young.

"You will start here," Hattie says, gesturing at the giant vats of water boiling over open flames. "Grab a bucket and get moving."

With that, Sam is put to work dragging buckets of water up to the vats from the stream that no longer seems nearly as close as it had. It doesn't take a genius to realize this is the most unappealing of all jobs. It's just her and the more timid looking women. Sam doesn't mind. The simple task leaves lots of time for paying attention to more important things, like the layout of the compound.

She's worked in peace for two hours before the women make their move on the newest inmate.

Sam has been keeping her eye on the short blond woman who seems to be the leader of the loudest of the bullies. She's got long blond hair swept up under a brightly colored bandana, and like most of the women here has hard eyes and worn features under her quick smile. It's the way she moves that really gives her away as trouble in Sam's mind. She's walking around like she owns the place.

Falling into step across the row of vats from Sam, the woman shadows her as she makes her way with her empty bucket. At the end of the row, Sam pauses, forced to acknowledge the other woman as their paths converge. She looks Sam straight in the eye and then deliberately slams her foot into the side of the tub, not even bothering to make it look like an accident. Sam jerks back, saving her body from the brunt of the contact, but the near-boiling water still splashes on Sam's nearest hand. She hisses, dropping her bucket as her hand flushes red in protest.

The other woman still stands on the other side of the tub with three of her buddies nearby for backup. "Oops, clumsy me," she says, the wry twist of her lips belying any attempt at mollifying Sam.

Sam is not stupid, she knows what this is and has no intention of going off half-cocked. Every place has its pecking order, and she's the freshest blood tossed into the system. They're trying to figure her out, gauge her reaction. It's tempting to demonstrate just how much they have picked on the wrong person, but Sam needs to get the lay of the land, figure out their best avenues of escape. She doesn't have time for grudge matches and watching her back every moment. Neither is she going to lie down for this bully, or they will never leave her in peace.

Grabbing a cloth from a nearby cold-water bath, Sam wraps it around her hand to soothe the throbbing. Gritting her teeth, she turns to the woman, stepping up close to her and looking her straight in the eye.

"Anyone can make a mistake," she says offhandedly, her voice casual even as she draws herself up to her considerably greater height. "Once."

The woman raises an eyebrow, as if amused by her pluck.

'Don't push me, or I will sure as hell push back,' is the unspoken threat Sam layers into her body language, the hardness of her expression.

The strategy seems to work well enough, the bully giving her an appraising smirk and leaving her alone for the rest of the shift. Not that Sam doesn't notice them eying her from across the compound from time to time. She thinks she's going to have to deal with this more head on if they are here long enough.

Just one more thing to look forward to.

A long afternoon spent bent over boiling vats of water and lugging buckets from the stream does nothing for the pain in Sam's neck. Even the throb of her burnt hand seems only secondary. When the bell sounds for end of shift, she forces herself to take the long way back to the living quarters, adding to the map of the compound building in her mind. Reaching their cubicle, she pulls out her precious notepad and pen, and begins sketching out the locations of the buildings she's seen.

She hears the bell tolling for the return of the men, but doesn't get up. Frankly the energy to get back to her feet completely escapes her. The Colonel will know where to find her.

He's carrying two bowls of food when he finally appears. "Hey."

"Hey," she says, looking up from her rudimentary map. He looks a little damp around the edges like he's just washed up, his clothes still tinged dark with the dust of ore, but brushed off as best as can be hoped. "How were the mines?"

"Peachy," he says, holding out a bowl to her.

She puts aside the map, reaching for the food.

"What happened to your hand?" he asks.

"Ah, that," she says, glancing down at the angry welt on the back of her hand. She shrugs. "There's a bit of a learning curve, training to be a laundress."

"Carter," he presses, clearly not buying it. Despite the off-hand disparaging of her domestic skills, he knows she's not clumsy by nature.

She grimaces. "Just making new friends, sir."

He raises an eyebrow as if waiting to see if she will expand on that. "Is this going to be a problem?" he says when she doesn't.

"No, sir," she says. "I've got it under control."

"You'll let me know if that changes."

"Of course, sir."

He sits down next to her, leaning over the map and filling in a few blank areas on the paper. The fading light glints off his collar and she notices that his is a bit different than the ones she's seen on the women. It's thinner, more elegant, with a delicate ornate pattern engraved on the metal.

"Sir, let me take a look at your collar," she says, itching to get her fingers on this technology. She moves around behind him, taking advantage of what light they have. There's a small panel on the back, probably what the guards accessed the first day. She runs her fingernail around the edge, loosening it.

"Are you sure you should be messing with that thing?" the Colonel asks.

"It looks Goa'uld," she says. "There aren't any controls here, but there is a slot that looks like something might attach. I think I remember the warden having something like that." To be honest, a lot about their first afternoon in Parramatta is unclear.

"Yeah," he says. "He brought it out with him in a box."

Sam files that tidbit away. Maybe if they could get into the warden's offices-.

The smell hits her first, a soft puff of smoke that gives off a scent like charred ozone. The Colonel grunts in pain, and then there's a tingle in her fingers, surging brutally up her arm, pain exploding behind her eyes.

Everything goes black.

"Carter."

Something cool is pressed against her forehead and she focuses in on the soothing sensation, anything to distract her from the throbbing ache that is the rest of her body. God, she feels like she's been hit by a bus.

"Carter," she hears again, fingers tapping her cheeks.

"Sir," she says, but it's more an incoherent slur of sound than a word, her tongue thick in her mouth.

"Open your eyes," he says and some part of her brain tries to follow the command. "Come on, Carter. Open your damn eyes."

Her eyes roll open, sliding across the room and it takes her a moment to focus in on his face.

"That's it, Carter," he encourages.

She licks her lips, struggling to find words through the faint buzzing in her ears. "What happened?"

Short sentence or not, he seems relieved by her ability to string words together. God, her brain really feels like it's been pureed in a blender. And why is she lying on the floor? There's something digging into her shoulder.

"I don't know," the Colonel says, pulling her attention back. "You were futzing with my collar and there was some sort of spark and then… It was like you were having a seizure or something."

Right, Sam thinks, the collars. "How long?"

He glances at his watch. "About two minutes." From the way he says it, it sounds like a lifetime. It feels like it too.

Her jaw aches from clenching her teeth and she forces herself to relax, taking a deep breath. "Okay," she says, her voice still a little shaky. "So no tinkering with the collars."

He lets out a huff, somewhere between relief and exasperation. "I'd say not, Carter." He sits back on his heels, dragging his hands over his face. He looks like he's just had twenty years scared off his life.

Letting her eyes close, she shifts away from the sharp object under her shoulder, her hand bumping up against his knee.

He doesn't move away.

* * *

 _It's SG-1's first briefing with the Colonel back in almost three months. Three months since he left the SGC to be cured by the Tok'ra. Two months since he returned, battered and shaken, from Baal's fortress. A few weeks since he disappeared off base to recuperate without so much as a word to SG-1._

 _Sam doesn't know what to expect from him. On the surface, he's the same man he's always been. He smiles and makes jokes, and she understands that it's all supposed to be okay now. Safely in the past. Forgotten and forgiven._

 _Only not._

" _The planet is called Methos," Jonas begins, voice eager as he brings up a slide on the screen._

 _Sam looks away from the hardness hiding in the Colonel's eyes, focusing her attention on the mission file in front of her._

 _Back to normal._

 _  
_

* * *

Day Three

Sam barely manages to drag herself to the laundry the next morning, more out of an attempt to show the Colonel that she is fine rather than any sense of work ethic. She took the last of the painkillers that morning, but they aren't even touching the ache running through her entire body.

Luckily the head bully, Tess—as Hannah informed her over breakfast—doesn't bother her this morning, and Sam thinks she must look _really_ pathetic if even the bullies are leaving her alone. It's not the relief it should be, especially when Hattie pulls her off water schlepping duty to the much less arduous job of running cloth through the ringers after they come out of the cold baths. Sam's not about to complain though, taking her place with the frail and the young.

It's mid-morning when one of the women in Sam's work detail—a particularly frail, downtrodden one—faints. All activity in the courtyard halts for a moment, as if waiting for something. But when the woman does nothing other than lie pale and unmoving on the slatted wooden floor, everyone returns to work. Two women pause by the unconscious woman, but only to carry her to the shade. Sam gets the sense that this is more to keep her out of everyone's way than any sense of decency or care.

Sam wants to ask someone what the hell is going on, why they haven't gone to get the poor woman medical attention, but the quiet women are too scared to talk to her, and the bullies haven't made up their mind about her yet, so she just keeps working.

When the guards eventually cycle through on their routine check, they don't bat an eye at the woman's distress. Not even the loss of productivity seems to concern them.

By lunch, the woman has roused again, but looks even worse if possible. Sam manages to catch sight of Hannah, sidling up next to her in the food line.

"What's happening to her?" Sam asks quietly with a jut of her chin towards the woman now huddled in the corner. She's shaking, her skin dewy with sweat, and everyone seems to be making a huge effort to pretend she doesn't exist, the laughter and chatter a bit forced.

Hannah's eyes dart in the indicated direction and just as quickly away again. "Her hearthmate has often spoken of escaping," she murmurs barely loud enough for Sam to hear, something like horror lacing her voice.

The warden's words rise in her mind. _If you should be foolish enough to brave the desert in an attempt to escape, she will pay the price in your stead._ She looks at the woman again, sees the unmistakable signs. "Is she going to…die?"

Hannah looks away. "If they catch him and return him in time, there is a chance for her."

Four hours later though, the woman takes one last rasping breath, her body finally stilling. It almost feels like a blessing, this sudden silence.

The guards remove the body.

Work continues uninterrupted.

* * *

When second shift ends, rather than taking the back way to the dormitory, Sam follows the rest of the women to the road. She watches them, the way their boisterous talk begins to subside, voices quieting, behavior shifting with each step towards the wagons conveying their hearthmates.

They line up in near silence to retrieve cups, filling them with water fresh from the stream. Even loud, crass Tess seems to shrink a bit, her swagger disappearing as she walks up to a dark, scraggly man Sam assumes to be her mate. It's only watching this strange ritual transformation that Sam really gets what it means for these women that they are only thing holding these men here—their tether.

It's the same backward co-dependence she's seen off world in many cultures taken to the nth degree. The men are ostensibly protecting these women by remaining, and in exchange, the women compliantly care for all their needs. These women are afraid, if not of their men specifically, than of their tenuous situation. If you piss off your mate, what's to say he won't just run off on you? Decide you aren't worth laboring away in a mine day after day for?

Their only answer is complete submission.

Having reached the front of the line, Sam grabs a cup of water. She skims the crowd for the Colonel, appearing by his side and offering him the cup.

He gives her a look of surprise. "Uh, thanks," he says, swallowing it down in one go.

Taking her arm, he pulls her towards the edge of camp, his voice quiet. "One of the men ran for it today," he says.

"I know," Sam says, feeling her stomach churn. She nods towards the cloth-covered body resting near the edge of camp where it waits for burial.

The Colonel curses, taking a step towards the body. "His hearthmate?" he asks.

"Yes."

So much for the guards bluffing them.

"There must be a kill switch of some kind," Sam says to his back, keeping her voice even, treating it like she's in the briefing room, filling him in on dry facts. Pretending she hadn't had to watch that woman die increment by increment. Ignoring the thud of pain still radiating from the back of her neck and what it means. "If the two collars lose their connection, if either gets too far away…"

"Jesus," he swears, and there's that same horror that's been crawling across her skin all day.

Sam thinks this must be why Hannah was so insistent on knowing if her hearthmate 'cared' for her. She wasn't being nosey. She just didn't want to bother getting attached to someone who was about to die anyway. Sam wonders how often that happens, how often a man here is bonded to a woman he doesn't care enough about not to kill.

The Colonel turns back to look at her and she can feel his eyes on her, assessing. "Carter?"

Taking a deep breath, Sam forces herself to look away from the body. "It wasn't…quick," she says, meeting his eyes. This isn't the first time her life has been in his hands, but this is nothing like trusting him to watch her six, different from having to follow his orders.

They stare at each other for a moment before he nods. "Yeah. Okay."

They spend the rest of the evening comparing notes, building maps of the terrain, and discussing the movements of guards.

Anything not to think about that body sitting out in the dark.


	2. Chapter 2

Day Four

Sam spends another day on ringer duty. She doesn't think she's imagining that the women in this section are quieter than usual as if overly aware that there is one less person working with them today.

Timid little Donna spends a great deal of time spreading the cloth haphazardly across her station as if attempting to obliterate any evidence that there had ever been someone else sharing it with her. Sam recognizes this as the coping mechanism it is. Delusion and faulty memory, it's the only way these women know how to deal with the helplessness. Pretend it doesn't exist and it might just go away.

Sam wishes she didn't find that impulse quite so familiar as she does.

Not even Tess, on her standard predatory march through the ranks, stoops so low as to bother Donna, or to acknowledge the missing woman who had only died yesterday but already might as well never have existed.

Sam never even bothered to learn her name.

Tess instead focuses on Sam, a far more neutral target. "How's the hand, sweetie?" she drawls with a wink as she passes by.

Sam ignores the dig, putting her energy into turning the crank on the ringer, pulling the cloth through. She holds her tongue because she's bigger than that, she tells herself, and not at all because she's still got a raging headache and can't think of anything better than, 'My hand will feel a lot better after it wipes that smirk off your face.' Clearly insults have never really been her thing. She'll have to ask the Colonel for some pointers when he gets back tonight.

Wiping a hand across her brow, Sam arches her back, thankful to have another day at the relatively easy task rather than bucket brigade duty. She can only hope the effects of her misguided attempt to study the collars won't last too long. She'd slept like the dead the first few nights here, but an inconvenient bout of insomnia is setting in now. If this trouble sleeping is born of ill ease—the haunted images of that nameless woman strangled slowly—well, she can't afford that sort of weakness. She needs her strength to find a way out of here, not to mention survive the long days of labor and the shifting manipulations of the prisoners.

She needs to do her best to forget, just like everyone else.

The end of second shift doesn't come a moment too soon as far as Sam is concerned. Ignoring her hunger and fatigue, she steps into the shaded alcove, sitting down and pretending to be fighting with the laces on her boots. The rest of the women file out without giving her a second glance.

Once alone, Sam reaches under the bench and pulls out the rough ceramic jug she pinched earlier from the trash bins. Originally used to hold dye, it will duplicate very well as a water bottle. It's been the biggest challenge so far, thinking of ways to get enough water to survive a trek in the desert, should it ever come to that.

Tugging her BDU shirt from around her waist, she wraps it carefully around the jug, tucks it under her arm, and takes the back way to the dormitory. It's empty when she gets there, all the other women out meeting the wagons.

Shifting the worn pile of blankets that serves as their bed, Sam pries the loose board they'd worked free the second night here, and slides the empty ink jug into the space underneath. She'll retrieve it to fill with water from the stream later after everyone has fallen asleep.

This is only the fourth day, but they've already got a pretty good stash of water and supplies going in their little hiding spot. Their escape is an unspoken inevitability. They just need to find a way around the collars.

"Hey."

Sam looks up to see the Colonel in the doorway. "Sir," she says, carefully sliding the plank back in place and covering it with blankets.

They walk over to the cookhouse together, but don't join the rest of the prisoners at the tables, rather retreating back outside. There's a fallen log on the ground near the stream, under some of the only shade available. It's hot and dusty, but at least offers them some semblance of privacy to discuss any developments of the day.

Neither have much to report today, but Sam's been working a few nagging questions at the back of her mind all day. "There's just one thing that's bothering me," she says, pausing slightly when she realizes she's left herself open for a glib remark there, but the Colonel just keeps eating. She tries not to read into that too much. "Where is the naquadah going?"

He looks up at her. "What do you mean?"

"Well, there's a warehouse here where all the textiles are being stockpiled. Hannah says a wagon train is sent out once a season, back to the provincial capital. But what about the naquadah?"

"They load it in wagons," the Colonel says, his eyes slipping distant as if trying to visualize it. "But they don't follow us back to the compound."

That isn't exactly surprising considering she's seen no evidence of technology here that could utilize electricity, let alone naquadah, but it certainly is suspicious. "So where is it all going?"

"As far as I could tell, they've only moved the collected ore once." He points to the right of the compound. "If we think of the mines as being to the north, they went off almost due east."

Sam follows his gesture, staring off to the east of the camp, but she can't see anything other than flat desert stretching almost to the horizon where a low lying, jagged looking set of hills bleed into the sky. It's hard to imagine that there is anything out there.

"And the wagons were back the very next day?" That would mean their stockpile must be pretty close within range.

"I couldn't say for sure they were the same wagons."

"You could try following it next time," she says, knowing it needs to be said.

His eyes dart over to the tall trees just on the other side of the fence, the newly disturbed earth that is the only grave marker in the rudimentary cemetery.

It's an uncomfortable reminder that choosing a direction and just going isn't an option for them, not with Sam tethered to the camp. They have to take the claim that stepping even a foot beyond the fence will kill her a hell of a lot more seriously now.

"They'll come for us," the Colonel says with his typical hard-edged optimism.

"Of course," she agrees, not voicing what both of them know perfectly well—that if this _is_ a different planet than Methos, the SGC actually finding them will be a lot like finding a needle in a haystack. If they don't even know how they got here, how is anyone else supposed to figure it out?

With a sigh, Sam pushes to her feet, stretching her back before taking the Colonel's empty cup and refilling it at the stream.

He gives her a funny look, but mutters, "Thanks," before downing the water.

They drop back into silence as they finish their evening meal.

She watches him over the edge of her bowl though, gauging the shadows in his face, the angles of his shoulders. He looks exhausted. He lost weight during his recuperation, but hadn't gained much back before he returned to the field. It isn't their style, taking extended time off. SG-1 believes far too much in getting back through the gate as soon as possible as the best possible form of therapy.

She wonders if that just makes them all fools.

"You're tired," she observes before she can think better of it.

"Nah," he says, shrugging off her concern. "Not my first stint in a naquadah mine, if you remember."

"Sir," she chides.

"I'll survive," he insists, steel under his flippant tone.

He's angry.

There's nothing in his body language to support this, nothing in his typically impenetrable façade beyond the exhaustion etched into his face, the weary slump of his shoulders. She still catches herself reaching out to touch his arm, her hand pulling back at the last moment.

He eyes her, the unexpected gesture not lost on him. "You okay?"

"Yeah," she replies, tucking her hand back under her leg.

His eyes narrow. "Carter."

"It's just a headache," she insists.

If he can lie, so can she.

* * *

 _His detox from the sarcophagus takes almost two weeks._

 _She sits outside the door sometimes, forces herself to stay there and listen to every heinous word that pours out of his mouth. Logically, she knows this is just the addiction talking, the agony of his body suffering through withdrawal._

 _He takes turns, raging against each of them, against anyone he can blame for the pain he's in. Baal, Kanan, the Tok'ra, even Daniel for some reason. But most of all her. Never by name, but she hears it just the same._

 _She earned this, every hateful word and horrifying flashback._

" _Over my dead body!"_

 _She did this to him._

* * *

 

Day Five

"For God's sake," Sam exclaims as the tepid water slops over the edge of the table, ruining her last hour of work and seeping down into her boots.

"I'm so sorry," Donna stutters, desperately trying to sop up the water she just spilled but only managing to dowse Sam again. "My hand slipped and I-."

Sam lifts a hand, feeling a particularly nasty spike of pain erupting behind her eye. "Just… _stop_ ," she snaps.

Donna seems to deflate, wincing at the hard edge in Sam's voice. She nods silently, stepping out of the way as Sam takes over the clean up. Sam tries to feel bad about yelling at someone as timid as Donna, but her feet are sloshing unpleasantly and how the hell is she supposed to _think_ with this damn pounding in her head?

"Problems, sweetheart?" a voice asks.

"Not now, Tess," Sam bites out, closing her eyes and trying to take a deep breath.

Tess' hand lands on Sam's arm and it's just the last straw. Before she can give it serious thought, Sam spins, dislodging the unwelcome hand, her arm hard across Tess' chest as she shoves her back towards the nearest post. The anger burning in her stomach with white-hot intensity is whispering for Sam to just let it all go for once, to give Tess exactly what she deserves.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Tess sputters, face livid. There's no fear here despite the huge disparity in their heights, no timid apologies, just indignation and not a little anger.

Out of the corner of her eye, Sam catches the movement of Tess's cronies quickly converging on them. Shit. Sam forces herself to drop her arm, gritting her teeth in an attempt to rein in her frayed temper.

"You've gone and done it now," Tess says, one hand rubbing at her throat.

Sam's trying to come up with a suitable rejoinder when without warning pain slashes across her back. The cronies are still way too far away to have touched her, and Tess is just staring at her, her eyes widening in momentary shock before her jaw clenches with distaste and what might be pity as Sam slips to her knees.

Sam strangles back a cry as another slash of red-hot anguish erupts across her back, but the third and the fourth follow too quickly and she can't hold back any longer. Around her, she's barely aware that the entire courtyard has fallen to silence, only the hiss and spatter of the fires vying with Sam as she pants against the pain.

She watches feet move around her, no one pausing to help, no one interested in her personal drama after the initial moment of shock. Not even Tess lingers, revenge apparently no longer on her mind.

At some point, one of the younger girls must have fetched Hannah because she's at Sam's side, helping her hobble into the shade. There's no new pain now, just the lingering agonized echoes and if Sam didn't know better she'd think someone had taken a lash to her flesh.

"Is it your back?" Hannah asks.

Sam nods, biting down on her lip.

Hannah disappears again for a moment, coming back with relief in the form of cool wet cloths that she drapes across Sam's back. Sam sighs with appreciation, the water soothing enough of the pain away to make it at least bearable.

Her hands are still shaking.

"How could he be so foolish?" Hannah mumbles furiously.

Sam tries to twist around to look at her. "What…what do you mean?"

Hannah shakes her head, handing Sam a cup of water. "I thought you said your heathmate was a man of compassion!"

Sam's brain isn't exactly working at peak efficiency at the moment, so she sucks down the water and tries to breathe deeply.

"He must have angered the guards," Hannah continues to mutter under her breath. "Foolish man."

"I don't understand," Sam manages.

Hannah pauses. "They must have told you when you arrived."

"Told me what?"

"She will pay the price in your stead," Hannah intones like an oft-repeated phrase.

Sam shakes her head, ignoring the bile rising in her throat. "You can't possibly mean…"

 _She is bound to you._

Sam watched that woman die two days ago. She gets that the collars have kill switches, but is Hannah trying to say they also translate…punishment? Pain? She latches on to the problem like a lifeline, focusing her mind down onto it like a logic puzzle.

She supposes theoretically it's possible. After all, when she'd used the memory device to recall Jolinar's time in Netu, she'd experienced the Tok'ra's pain as if she had really been there. But even that hadn't quite felt like this.

Gingerly, Sam lifts her shirt, still not certain what she's going to find. Twisting slightly, she catches sight of the tail end of a deep red welt curling around her side, her skin puckered and angry, but not broken.

She can't even begin to theorize how something like this is possible. The sensation of pain is one thing, the reality of actually having damage transferred to her body… That's impossible, right?

Her fingers lift to the collar, the faint hum of the metal that she hopes she's just imagining. If the signal feeds directly to her brain stem, if it is somehow capable of convincing the brain of the reality of the injury, could her body truly react? Could her blood vessels rupture in response?

God, is it possible?

"You should return to your quarters," Hannah advises, probably catching the blanching of her skin. "No one will expect you to work any more today."

Sam's not sure she believes that, but when she looks up, the other women in the laundry are all studiously looking around her or through her and it's so similar to the woman's death the other day that Sam feels her stomach clench.

They don't want to see her, to be reminded of what might happen to them at any moment.

This is helplessness Sam never thought she would have to experience.

* * *

When the Colonel returns from the mines that evening, Sam watches him from the corner of the cookhouse, registers the slightly stiff way he walks as if refusing to betray any discomfort in front of the guards. Sam doesn't think she imagines the way the other men look at him, like they are all a little in awe of him. Or afraid. But it's nothing to how the women stare when his back is turned, the uneasy mix of resentment and apprehension.

Sam grabs two bowls of stew and leaves the cookhouse.

The moment Sam walks up to him, she knows he has been oblivious to all of this. He has no idea what he's done.

"Are you okay, sir?" Sam asks, keeping her voice carefully neutral, refusing to let any of her own pain show.

He grimaces when he tries to shrug nonchalantly. "Had a little problem with the guards today."

She can hear the anger under his words, or maybe that's still her own anger still bubbling right under the surface, a remnant from this morning. From before everything went to hell. Only now she's having a hard time remembering _why_ she'd been angry. Donna hadn't really done anything worth the reaction. What had really set her off?

She rolls her neck, trying to shake off the buzz of anger that's making it hard to think properly.

Sitting gingerly down on the log next to the Colonel, she hands him his bowl of food. "You should be more careful, sir."

He stares straight ahead at the horizon, but it's like he's seeing something else entirely. "It's not bad," he says.

He's lying. He's been lying for a long time.

"What about you? Anything new?" he asks, blinking something away as he shifts on the log to look at her.

"No," Sam says, keeping her eyes trained on the dirt. "Nothing happened."

She forces herself to eat.

* * *

 _Sam is hovering outside the infirmary. It's been three days since the Colonel escaped Baal's fortress, since he made it back against all odds._

" _Can I see him?" Sam asks when Janet steps out into the hall._

" _Let me see if he's up?" she says, giving Sam a strained smile._

 _Sam follows after Janet, knowing she's intruding, but drawn in by the sound of their voices and the wariness on Janet's face. She stops behind the first row of curtains._

" _Sir, Sam is here to see you," Janet says._

" _No," he says, his voice hoarse but certain. Ruthlessly certain. "Tell her I'm asleep. Tell her-. Hell, I don't care. Just, no. I don't want to see her."_

 _Janet steps back out, clearly surprised to find Sam so close. Surprise quickly morphs into pity though, and Sam can't stand to see it. She heads back out into the hall, Janet right on her heels._

" _I'm sorry, Sam," Janet starts to say. "Just give him some time. I'm sure-."_

" _It's fine, Janet," Sam says, already backing away, a fake smile plastered on her face like his words haven't hurt her. Why would they? "Don't worry about it."_

 _The lies don't stop the burning in her stomach._

 _  
_

* * *

_  
_

Day Six

Hannah appears in the doorway the next morning just as the Colonel is leaving for the wagons. Sam feels a lurch in her stomach, assuming Hannah has come to check on her, scared that she might give away her secret.

Sam can't explain why she's keeping her injury from the Colonel, can't even begin to justify it, just knows that sitting there on the log with him, she'd seen something, _understood_ something in him in that moment that kept her silent. She can't explain it.

Sam needn't have worried that Hannah would say anything though. The moment the woman catches sight of the Colonel, she shrinks quickly out of the way, her eyes dropping to the floor, but not before Sam catches the edge of her distaste.

The Colonel gives Sam a look, his eyebrows lifting in question, but she just shakes her head, giving him a small smile. She doubts explaining Hannah's fear of him would work anymore than trying to convince Hannah that the Colonel is actually the last man here she would ever have reason to be scared of. Not with these bruises still fresh on her skin.

The smile drops off her face the second he turns his back on her.

Hannah waits until he disappears outside before stepping into the space with Sam. "I thought you would require help this morning," she says.

"It's really not that bad," Sam insists, getting to her feet with minimal wincing. Grin and bear it is a way of life with SG-1. Just another normal day, she tells herself.

Hannah doesn't look like she believes her, but doesn't press.

They step out of the dormitory, and Sam presses a hand to her temple as she squints against the searing light, the way it notches up the pressure building along the base of her skull. It's enough to make her momentarily forget the discomfort of her back. She thinks it may be time to finally admit the truth—the headache isn't going away. It's only getting worse.

"Sam, are you unwell?" Hannah asks.

"A headache," she confirms.

There's a flash of alarm on Hannah's face, her body leaning slightly away from Sam as if scared of contamination. "I see. Has it gotten worse or is it simply the same since you arrived?"

Sam doesn't know what makes her lie. "The same," she says. Maybe she just can't stand to have Hannah, her one connection here, begin to look through her like a ghost like everyone else.

Hannah's relief is obvious. "It will fade with more time," she says, nodding her head as if it is a foregone conclusion.

"I'm sure it will," Sam says, forcing a smile on her face.

Hannah digs into her pocket, her hand pulling free with a small ceramic jar. "Take this," she says, pressing it into Sam's hand. "For the bruising."

Sam twists open the jar, a deep earthy smell—slightly pungent with a trace of something flowery like lavender—reaching her nose. Inside are the remnants of a creamy salve, clearly much used. Sam doesn't need to be told to get how precious resources are here.

Sam shakes her head, trying to give it back. "I couldn't."

"Keep it," she insists.

Sam has long ago realized that Hannah is a woman who defines herself by her helpfulness, like a mother hen without a brood. She thinks Hannah belongs somewhere surrounded by grandchildren, but the bizarre lack of children here is one of the questions Sam simply refuses to ask.

"Thank you," Sam says, slipping it into her pocket.

"Have a good day," Hannah says, turning towards the building housing the looms. She pauses after only a few steps, looking back at Sam. "If you are indeed still ill, you should see the warden. Perhaps there is something he can do." She isn't quite meeting Sam's eye as she says this, but Sam thinks even an empty suggestion is better than what she has right now.

"Okay," Sam says. "Thanks."

Hannah nods and disappears into the workshop.

She drags herself to the laundry, but her concentration is shot and after a while she becomes convinced that Hattie is going to smack her upside the head if she drops one more freshly laundered bolt of cloth in the dirt. When she mentions seeing the warden, Hattie practically shoves her out the door with relief.

The warden eyes Sam suspiciously, clearly wary of her claims of a malfunctioning collar, the building pressure in her mind, the headaches that won't fade.

"Please," she insists.

Maybe she looks as bad as she feels because he eventually shrugs. "Fine. Stay here," he orders, turning to go into his office.

For a moment Sam considers following him, pretending confusion or stupidity, but the guard hasn't taken his eyes off her, his body shifting across her path.

A few moments later the warden reappears, a small device in his hand. Sam's eyes latch on to it, noting the color of the metal, the glyphs that clearly mark it as Goa'uld. Her fingers twitch.

The warden squints down at the device, holding it up to her neck. He mashes at the buttons with the incomprehension of someone unfamiliar with technology, and she knows then that the warden is just another pawn in the food chain.

"It's functioning fine," he says after a moment, jamming it carelessly back into his pocket. "Now get back to work."

Sam hesitates, weighing the risk of just grabbing the damn thing, and the warden doesn't miss it.

He gestures at the guard. "I said get back to work."

The guard gives her a little push with the butt of his rifle, nothing particularly savage, but he unerringly manages to hit a nasty patch of bruising on her back. Sam's jaw tightens against the nausea rolling in her stomach at the spike of pain, gingerly walking off before the guard can give her another jab.

She doesn't go back to the laundry, instead wandering past the cookhouse and the rear storage sheds until there's nothing between her and the desert other than the flimsy, faded rope line. She stares at it, this impenetrable line, and tries to fight the swell of hopelessness building in her stomach.

Eventually she hears the wagons approach in the distance, the lowing of the alien beasts pulling them. She watches the dust disperse around her, back out into the desert.

He's looking for her.

"Where the hell are you, Carter?" she hears as if he has whispered in her ear.

She turns.

There's no one there. She's alone.

She walks back towards the buildings.

* * *

 _He can't breathe. Kanan has ruthlessly shoved him so far back into a corner of his own mind that he imagines himself gasping for air, scrambling for a way out. Panic claws at him._

 _He has no control._

 _Fucking Tok'ra. He can't even feel a beat of smugness at being proven right. In the end, there really is no difference. A snake is a snake, and a host is just a vehicle._

 _When Kanan finally lets him up for air, the snake's chokehold on his senses releasing, they are standing in the doorway to a small chamber._

 _A girl looks up at them from where she sits on the edge of a bed. Her head tilts to one side, eyes sad and confused and yet somehow, still trusting._

" _Is it you?"_

 

Day Eight

Sam spends the next two days watching the men and their hearthmates as she waits for the marks on her back to fade. She's building facts, testing her hypothesis, really _really_ hoping to prove it false, but the evidence only builds and compounds upon her suspicions.

She sees the way the women serve their mates with barely the need for a word between them. It's far more than mere survival instinct, she's realizing. More like an intuition, an ability to read mood and anticipate needs. Like slackening a man's thirst after a long dusty ride.

It's the one tool the women have, this connection, but it's just another part of the trap.

Sam's fingers trail along the metal of her collar, wondering at the part of her brain that can still be fascinated by the technology keeping her here. More important than the how is the _why_. Where had these people gotten their hands on it? The collars are technology incongruous with the primitive world of the camp. She hasn't seen even the tiniest sign anywhere else. They are still doing laundry over open fires and using handmade soap for God's sake.

She remembers the warden poking at the accompanying collar device with all the understanding of a two year old.

Her eyes begin to linger on the warden's house. She logs careful mental notes about who goes in and who goes out, and when. Only twice a day does anyone other than the warden or a guard enter the building. Mid-morning a woman Sam doesn't know approaches with buckets, rags, and a broom, apparently being in charge of cleaning his house. And then there is the varying troop of women who approach each evening after sunset. Sam suspects those duties are a bit different.

She files the information away.

At lunch, Sam jabs her spoon into her bowl, and tries to work her way around to the question she needs to ask Hannah. One last piece of information to gather, because there is still the possibility that all of this is really nothing more than Sam losing her mind.

Sam clears her throat. "Can I ask…"

Hannah lifts her head. "Yes?"

Sam forces herself to put down the spoon and stop fidgeting. "I was wondering if the collars… If maybe…" She stumbles, having no idea how to breech this topic. She takes a breath and tries a different tack. "Do the collars only translate pain?"

"What do you mean?"

Oh, hell. She's just going to have to come out and say it. "Have you ever felt your hearthmate's emotions, or…thoughts, or anything?"

Hannah's eyes widen, like maybe this is something the women just don't discuss. She looks away. "I feel his…needs, his temper. But his thoughts, no."

Sam blows out a breath, nodding. "Okay." Maybe there is something different enough about their brain chemistry to explain it, or maybe she messed something up when she tinkered with the collars. Who knows?

The only thing Sam can be remotely thankful for is that it seems to be only working in one direction. When she scalded her hand that first day, he hadn't felt a thing. So she doesn't have to worry about Jack O'Neill hearing her innermost thoughts.

She just has to worry about hearing his.

* * *

In the dark, Sam watches Jack sleep.

If she's been uncharacteristically quiet, he hasn't noticed, too busy slipping into his own impenetrable stretch of silence. The long days in the mine are beginning to take their toll on him and it's just one more thing grinding away at them in this godforsaken place. She thinks maybe the impossibility of their situation here is finally sinking in. They're trapped, and every day that passes without sign of rescue is another notch of inevitability.

His sleep is troubled more often than not now, his face compressing in the patch of moonlight.

It's nothing concrete, just a feeling of frustration, claustrophobia, words he tries so damn hard to hold back. A woman's voice, distant and echoing. _Is it you?_

She doesn't know what any of it means, but it's enough that she suspects.

His labored breathing seems loud in the small space, somehow amplified as she watches him in the dark. He jerks awake on a curse.

"Sir," she says, even though she knows better. He's never had a nightmare off world, but it seems obvious that she should ignore it, look the other way.

She can't.

He ignores her, grabbing for his shoes and pulling them on with jerky movements. Every nuance of his body language screams for her to leave him alone, to give him space, but she knows exactly what is underneath. He's drifting, a little lost. Nothing to hold on to.

 _Is it you?_

"Are you all right?" she tries again, her fingers reaching out to brush across his arm, his flesh warm and fevered.

"Leave it, Carter," he snaps, shrugging off the contact and pushing out through the door. He leaves nothing but echoing pain and frustration in his wake, jarring against her skull.

She can't follow his order, even if she wants to.

No one's giving her a choice.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

Day Nine

There's someone new in the compound. The warden's boss as far as Sam can tell. The atmosphere is drawn tight, all the guards kowtowing in a way she's never seen before.

They're afraid of him.

It's late evening, and Sam is one building down from the warden's house, standing against the wall of the warehouse just outside the spill of light. It's payday, Sam suspects, as the guards have been cycling in and out of the low slung veranda where the stranger sits sipping some sort of liquid with them, no doubt a ritual meant to build good will with the underlings. The warden flutters about the periphery as each guard signs a ledger in turn, not ink and paper, but a touch screen of some sort that makes Sam's fingers twitch like a caveman catching his first sight of a lighter.

This stranger is the answer they've been looking for, she's certain of it.

She and Jack had split up earlier after the boss arrived. He's somewhere on the other side of the compound, taking advantage of the guards' distraction to search their barracks. She doesn't need to meet back up with him to know he hasn't found anything. She can feel his frustration beating at the back of her mind.

Leaning back against the wall, Sam rubs at her forehead as she feels a sharp pulse of pain, something different from the dull drone she's accustomed to at this point, a tension headache building without warning, so suddenly that she knows it isn't hers.

The stranger's eyes stray across her and settle, just for a split second, but it's enough for Sam to tense. "Damn," she swears under her breath, quickly stepping further back into the shadows.

She has to be way smarter than this, can't risk letting herself get distracted by the invasive noise in her mind. Circling back around the outside of the compound, well within the flimsy boundary marker that no longer looks quite as benign as it had that first day, she slips towards the dormitory.

She's just reached one of the out buildings when she hears footsteps.

"What are you doing out here?" a voice asks.

Sam looks up to find a man she vaguely recognizes as Tucker, the hearthmate of Hannah. He's not particularly tall or built, merely average with thinning brown hair and a sharp, angular face. Not threatening, but as far as Sam's seen, men don't interact publicly with other men's hearthmates.

Warily, Sam moves to walk a wide berth around him, not bothering to respond.

He deliberately steps across her path. "You really shouldn't be wandering around all on your own."

The words are mild, but Sam feels the underlying threat drag across her skin. Keeping her eyes lowered, she says, "I'm heading inside right now." She can make out the lights of the dormitory in the distance.

"Not quite yet, you're not," he says, his hand closing on her arm, squeezing her flesh.

Sam reacts without thinking, her training kicking in at the perceived threat. She lands a firm punch to his face, one that really should have knocked him solidly back, but he is barely fazed, one hand coming up to his cheek.

"Are you dumb, or just really that heartless?" he spits.

Sam stares at him, adrenaline receding long enough for her brain to kick in. Oh, God.

Hannah.

"I know you don't want to hurt her," he says, moving closer. Sam backs away with each step he takes towards her until she's trapped against the wall of the outhouse.

He looks her over, the gleam in his eyes unmistakable. "Just be real quiet and it will be over before you know it," he says, reaching for her wrists, pressing up against her.

Oh, God. This isn't happening. This can't possibly be happening. She's still brainstorming some exit for herself, shifting her weight with the resignation that she will just have to hurt him as minimally as possible when someone grabs Tucker from behind, heaving him off of her.

It's the rage she registers first before the sight of the familiar profile slamming Tucker to the ground. Jack's fist is pulling back when Sam lunges forward.

"Sir, no!" she says, grabbing his arm. "You can't! Hannah-."

The asshole takes advantage of Sam's interference to land a sucker punch on Jack and Sam feels the pain explode in her own side, thudding against her ribs. Jack barely grunts at the blow, one hand pressed against his side as Tucker scrambles away, disappearing into the dark like the spineless grub he is.

"Carter," Jack snaps, rounding on her. "What the hell were you-." He stops mid-sentence, realizing she's doubled over in pain because he may have shrugged the hit off, but she feels like her ribs are cracked. "Damn it. Are you okay?"

"It's nothing, sir," she says through clenched teeth, but she can already see him making the connection, his eyes narrowing as his hand travels back to his own side. He's going back over her words as she tried to stop him from hitting Tucker.

 _Sir, you can't!_

"Why didn't you fight him, Carter?" He doesn't sound angry anymore, just calm and terribly dangerous, because he's putting it all together.

She sits down on a rock, her breath still coming out in uneven bursts.

"Carter," he says, his hand on her arm now and she can feel his insistence, knows he won't let this drop.

"Because I didn't want to hurt his hearthmate," she says.

His fingers tighten on her arm. "Are you trying to tell me…" He trails off, as if unable to put it into words.

She looks up at him, but doesn't answer. His eyes dart to her back. She sits completely still as she feels him lift the hem of her shirt. They've faded somewhat, mellowed to a sickly green, but she knows he'll be able to see the marks, even in the dim light.

"Son of a bitch," he swears.

He paces away from her a few feet, passing in and out of the light spilling from the dormitory windows. Sam lifts a hand to her pounding head, wondering if his anger is always this loud, this close to the surface, or if it's just this place. Or just what he's been through.

She squeezes her eyes shut.

Don't think about it, don't think about-.

"Why the hell didn't you tell me?" he demands, his voice low and furious and nowhere near as sharp as his thoughts.

"I don't know," she says, rubbing at her temples. She's losing her mind, isn't she?

"Shit, Carter. I think this pretty clearly falls in the category of things I need to know about."

"You're right, sir. I'm sorry." She can't explain what made her keep this to herself. But mostly she doesn't want to even try because she suspects her reasons may be even more unsettling than the uncertainty. She just doesn't want to look that closely.

"Anything _else_ I should know?" he says, jamming one hand through his hair.

She hesitates, tries to judge his anger again and decide if he'll be able to handle it if she tells him the whole truth. Before she can decide, there's the louder intrusion of Tucker's face in her mind, distorted and bloody.

"Sir, no," she snaps, pushing to her feet. "Don't even _think_ about it."

Jack goes completely still. "Don't even think what, Carter?"

Oh, God.

"What exactly am I _thinking_?" he says, taking a few steps closer, looming over her, and the crackle of energy around him is almost audible.

"You can't go after Tucker," she says, forcing herself to look him in the eye.

He stares back at her as her fingers unconsciously stray to the collar around her neck, a confirmation of the connection that Jack suspects.

 _You've got to be kidding me,_ he thinks.

She shakes her head, her voice lowering to a whisper. "I really wish I was kidding."

He looks calm, in control, the same way he always looks when off world in a dangerous situation. Only she knows better now.

"I'm sorry," she says.

He shakes his head, and it's the way he's no longer meeting her gaze that makes the hair on the back of her neck stand up. "Get back inside," he says, taking her arm firmly and guiding her back towards the bunkhouse.

"Sir-," she says, not resisting, just feeling winded by the whirlwind of emotions and thoughts jumbling in her head.

"Carter," he cuts across her. "Just…don't. For once in your life…" He bites the rest of the sentence off, but she knows exactly how close he is to snapping. He pushes her over the threshold of the bunkhouse. "Stay here."

She doesn't mistake it for anything other than an order.

He stalks off into the darkness.

* * *

He's gone for hours, physically absent but still a soft hum in her mind, a whirlwind of thoughts and emotions too distant and chaotic to be distinct. Something is building though, something stronger and singular, vibrating and brilliant above everything else—anger.

When he finally returns, the canvas pushing back from the door with a soft brush of sound, she lies still on the pallet, her back to him. She breathes slow and even, refusing to acknowledge the thrum of his emotion against her skin.

He knows she isn't asleep. He's just waiting. Testing her maybe.

 _Why didn't you tell me?_

She closes her eyes, but doesn't roll over to look at him. "I wasn't sure at first," she says. "I thought I was just losing my mind." It isn't excuse enough, but it's all she has.

"And after?" he asks, his voice bruised. She wants to think she's imagining it, letting her exhausted brain get away from her, because how the hell does a voice sound _bruised_?

"It's not all the time," she hedges.

"Carter."

She flinches, her hands clenching into fist, twisting up against her chest. "I thought we could get out of here and that maybe you'd never have to know," she confesses.

She didn't think he could handle it and they both know it. It burns through him, this betrayal. It builds up on her skin like a film she won't ever be able to wash away.

She considers rolling over to explain that she was trying to protect him. To protect both of them.

It's the one thing she can't say.

* * *

 _It takes Jack a while to find her, to move past all the defensive walls piled up over her face, but even the snake can't keep her hidden forever. All it takes is one moment of distraction, one weak stray thought and Jack has all the gory details exploding fully formed into his mind._

" _What the hell did you do?" Jack demands, her name echoing in their mind._

 _Kanan is unsettled, thrown off balance by the sudden attack. "There was no time, the information was too important," he justifies, throwing back up those walls as quickly as he can._

 _It's much too late. Jack's already seen it. "You loved her."_

 _Kanan shudders. "The mission—."_

 _Jack doesn't give a shit about the mission. "You loved her and you left her behind," he accuses, the words bitter in their throat._

 _There's nothing Kanan can say to defend that._

 _Nothing._

 _  
_

* * *

Day Ten

On the morning of their tenth day stuck in Parramatta, the bells don't ring. There's no guard banging on the posts, no call to the wagons. Wondering at the general lack of activity, Jack mumbles something about checking it out and disappears out of the cell.

Sam follows more slowly, her head feeling three times its normal size. Even the bruise in her side from where Tucker had thrown a punch at Jack barely registers next to the ache that is her head.

When she finally rouses herself enough to step out into the bright morning sunlight, her eyes adjust slowly. Her vision clears and she can see that Jack is across the path, talking to a small collection of guards near the wagons. A short line of prisoners is filling them with what looks like basic supplies—water and food.

Sam doesn't approach, rather waits for Jack to finish his conversation and cross back over to her side.

"Apparently today's something of a holiday," he says.

Listening to the voices pouring out of the dormitory behind her, Sam registers that everyone does seem more boisterous than usual. She can't quite think of it as a boon though. In all honesty, a day's rest from work couldn't have come at a worse time. Without saying a word, Sam already knows that Jack wants to be anywhere but near her and she doesn't blame him for that. She still doesn't have an excuse capable of holding water for the secrets she's kept. At least not one that won't just make everything worse.

"I'm volunteering for the supply run," Jack says. "Out to the grazers."

Sam knows that the wool the women process here comes from a widely spread collection of men watching over flocks of sheep-like animals. It's only logical that they must get their food and supplies somehow.

"It should give me a chance to see a little more of the outlying terrain," he continues. It's an excuse though, Jack going through the motions of pretending he isn't just trying to get away from her.

The look he gives her practically dares her to call his bluff.

"Okay," she says, demurring as always.

He lingers another moment, meeting her eyes squarely for the first time since Tucker's attack. "You're okay here?" he asks in the clipped tones of a commander checking on the status of his subordinate.

She nods. "I don't think Tucker will try anything again, sir."

Jack's lips press into a thin line, and she knows his sense of duty to her safety is warring with his need to get the hell out of Dodge for a few hours. She thinks it will be safer for them both for him to take it.

He comes to the same conclusion. "Just…stick close to the group today, okay?"

"Yes, sir," she says.

She watches as they finish loading the wagons. The men split up in groups of two, the wagons heading off in different directions. The dust settles behind them as they disappear into the greasy smudge of the horizon.

Dutifully, Sam turns for the cookhouse. When she ducks inside though, it is instantly clear that her status has changed. There's a ripple of awareness through the room, eyes darting to her and just as quickly away, faces turned behind hands as they whisper.

Sam skims the crowd, ignoring the majority of the women. There's only one face she's interested in. When she finally finds Hannah, she's sickened to see the dark bloom of a bruise across her cheek. Sam takes one step towards her, thinking to explain, to apologize, but Hannah carefully looks away, shifting her posture so her back turns to Sam.

It's an obvious enough of a cut that Sam stops in her tracks.

Sam doesn't blame her, no matter how much the gesture hurts. Hannah, like all the other women here, has very little in her life she has actual control over. Who she speaks to is one of them. A small act of defiance, but it's all she has.

Sam grabs a bowl of porridge and ducks back outside, walking until she hits the stream. There are a few women out here doing small loads of personal laundry and Sam convinces herself that is close enough of a crowd to constitute following Jack's order. Moving over to the shade of one of the few stunted trees out here, she sits at its base and watches the women, the way they dart wary looks at her over their shoulders.

She's not sure how long she spends out there, food untouched. She catches herself thinking how nice it would be to have everything be quiet again, no more noise, no more suspicion from strangers and looks of betrayal from people who'd once trusted her.

She realizes she's staring at the fence with something close to longing and nearly drops her bowl.

Sucking in a deep breath, she shakes her head to clear the cobwebs crowding it. She's letting the noise get to her, the tangle of emotions cloud her brain. What the hell is wrong with her?

She has a problem that on the surface seems insurmountable, but since when is that new? She needs to do what she's always done in these situations—trust the facts. Information. The answers will be there, she just needs to buckle down and find them.

Sitting out here moping is not going to _fix_ anything.

Getting out of here is all that matters, she reminds herself. None of this will mean anything once they are back at the SGC. Everything will go back to normal.

She's got to get this damn collar off. It's as simple and impossible as that.

She can do simple and impossible.

With a flick of her wrist, Sam empties the contents of her bowl in the brush and turns back towards the cookhouse.

Stepping back inside, Sam watches the women with a critical eye. They seem set on spending the day doing chores they normally don't have time for, fashioning replacement pieces of clothing from the small stipend of rough cloth not good enough to bother trading. Needle and thread and cloth are the three things other than dust that are in abundance here. There's a tight trade in every other good, the small bits of makeup or decorative ribbons or whatnot that have somehow magically appeared quickly changing hands.

As Sam moves through the space, she watches the way backs turn to her, a strange swath of open space appearing wherever she goes.

In fact, there is only one woman that meets Sam's wandering gaze with anything other than fear or resentment. Tess meets Sam's eye, not looking away, rather throwing back a challenging look of her own. She's not scared of her.

Crossing the room, Sam steps up behind a woman she estimates to be the most timid of the bunch huddled around Tess's table. It doesn't take long for the woman to push out of her seat just to avoid Sam's presence.

Sam grabs the vacated chair, flipping it around and straddling it. A few other women get up and leave, casting wary, curious gazes back over their shoulders as they go. Tess, still flanked by the more steady of her cronies, merely leans back in her chair as if supremely unconcerned by Sam's sudden appearance.

"Tess," Sam says with a nod.

"Sam," she returns. It has to be some sort of irony that Tess is the only woman who will speak to her anymore. She's earned a sick sort of street cred now that the Tucker story has made the rounds. "You got something you need said?"

"I'm interested in acquiring certain items."

Tess's expression doesn't change. "Do I look like a general store?"

"You look like a woman of many resources and talents."

Tess smirks. "Oh, I got my fair share of talents," she drawls, the women on either side of her laughing appreciatively.

Sam decides not to beat around the bush. "I need mirrors. Two of them."

Tess raises an eyebrow. "Not exactly common in these parts. Or cheap."

Sam shrugs, knowing showing any sense of urgency is the most dangerous thing she can do with Tess. "I think I could make it worth your while."

Tess glances at the women by her side, their faces bright with the possibility of profit. "Let's step outside, shall we?" she says, pushing to her feet and shaking out her skirts. Apparently Tess's trust of her underlings stretches only so far, or maybe she's just smart enough to keep her profits to herself.

Outside, the men have gathered in groups, most riveted to some sort of animal fight. Sam catches sight of the animals, something like a cross between a snake and a hamster. Apparently the lure of violence and blood isn't completely missing in the men. This blood sport just may be the only safe outlet they have. They bet and trade in a thin cigar-like substance called the smoke. There is also a brisk trade in a bootleg sort of brew being passed around.

The women themselves are much more relaxed, laughter more fluid and she wonders if the collars even translate inebriety.

Tess pauses by one of the fights, watching the outcome of a particularly vicious bout and Sam forces herself to stand and wait, no matter how much the blood sport sickens her. Sam suspects Tess is not the sort to be nudged, not without shoving back twice as hard.

With a last brutal bite to the neck, one of the animals finishes off its opponent in a shower of blood. A cry of victory mixed with moans of defeat ripples through the crowd of men, smoke and brew changing hands.

Tess nods her head as if approving the victory, sliding Sam a look. Sam can't help but think that Tess was testing her, or just not passing up a single moment to manipulate those around her, making Sam stand and watch something that could at best be called a gory, juvenile game of torture.

The men begin setting up for the next round, shouting out bets and insults.

"Come on," Tess says, leading Sam around the back of the laundry and into the welcoming shade of the walls. "Mirrors ain't cheap, even on loan. What you got to trade?"

"What would interest you?"

Tess' smile stretches wide. "Well, as nice to look at as your man is, that won't begin to cover it. And I ain't into the smoke."

The smoke is the main currency in the barter system among the men. The guards seem to be the main supplier of that commodity, usually earned by the prisoners through chores above and beyond normal duty, or by offering unobstructed access to their hearthmates. Sex and cigarettes, just two more of the great universals.

Except with Tess. Sam tries not to feel too relieved about that.

Deciding her best strategy, Sam looks Tess over, picking up on the details: the brimmed hat she always wears in the sun, the careful way she ties her hair back, covering it with scarves. The sign that despite her rough, work-honed hands, the nails and cuticles are carefully maintained. This is a woman living a rough life, but with a streak of vanity.

"What about a lotion that keeps your skin from burning in the sun?" Sam asks.

Tess' eyes betray a flash of interest quickly hidden. "Now why would I want something like that, even if you do got such a thing?"

It's a rough life here. Sam suspects it ages women prematurely. Maybe youth in a bottle is something Tess would find irresistible.

"How old do you think I am?" Sam asks.

Tess raises an eyebrow at the question, but doesn't bother to hazard a guess. Sam thinks Tess may actually be quite a bit younger than herself, despite the way she carries herself, the web of wrinkles that speak to hard work and a lifetime of smug amusement. Modern convenience and a booming pharmaceutical industry have afforded Sam a much easier life in comparison. Unfortunately, off-world age in years means nothing. Glancing about, Sam sees a girl at the stream filling a bucket, judges her to be just a few years past puberty.

Sam juts her chin towards the girl. "Old enough to have her as my child." And then some, if women here reproduce as early as Sam suspects.

Tess looks Sam over again. She doesn't really have any reason to believe Sam's claim, but despite her behavior, the bully is not unintelligent. Maybe she's bright enough to see that Sam and Jack aren't like anyone else here in either dress or manner. That if anyone might have access to something unheard of, it would be Sam.

After a while, Tess nods. "Bring it to the stream in three hours. If I think it's worth it, I'll lend you the mirrors."

"Deal," Sam says with a firm nod, turning back towards the dormitory.

"One can only hope you're going to use the mirrors to do something with that mess you call hair," Tess hollers after her, the rough snap of cruel amusement in her voice.

From a distance, Sam can hear the roar of the men as another helpless animal meets a bloody end.

She really hates this damn place.

* * *

Sam spends the few hours until the deal resting quietly in the dormitory. The stifling heat isn't doing anything for the nausea crawling up her throat. There's the slightest tingle in her fingers now that's never been there before. She doesn't want to think what that might mean.

When the appointed time comes, she digs the sunscreen out of their supplies and heads out to the stream. Tess is already waiting for her.

"Let's see it," Tess demands, getting straight down to business.

Sam produces the small tube of sunscreen, squeezing a small amount into her palm.

Tess rolls it between her fingers, not lifting her eyes to Sam as she speaks. "And why shouldn't I just take it from you?"

Sam doesn't change her posture, doesn't let her body move at all, just stares back at the top of Tess's head and says, "You could try." She's not unprepared for the possibility of a double cross, no matter how much it seems like Tess hasn't brought back up with her.

Tess looks up, holding Sam's gaze. Long seconds pass, only for Tess to laugh loudly, smacking Sam on the arm. "I've always liked you."

Sam raises an eyebrow at her, clearly remembering how they met.

Tess just grins, pulling out two small handheld mirrors from the deep pockets of her skirt. "Best I could do on such short notice."

One of them has a crack down the middle, but should still do well enough for her purposes. She tries not to wonder how Tess got her hands on them in the first place. She has more important things to focus on. Like escape.

Turning one of the mirrors slightly, it catches a burst of sunlight, temporarily blinding Sam. As her eyes clear, she can see her own face slide into view. She's not ready for it, the reflection staring back at her. She's pale, but with dark circles under her eyes. She looks like that dying nameless woman in the laundry, disappearing by increment.

She lowers the mirror, swallowing hard against the nausea in her throat.

Tess is giving her a critical look. "Your man's out on refresh duty," she says, not so much a question as a fact.

Sam neither confirms nor denies the supposition.

"He sure must have a hard yearn for the smoke," Tess continues. "Either that or he just don't like you too much."

That's when Sam finally makes the connection. It's not the free day of rest the men are reluctant to pass up in order to do the extra labor. It's that they all know it takes them out of range. Not far enough to kill, but far enough to make her sick.

So this is what it feels like, she thinks. She's getting her first glimpse of what death here tastes like.

Tess shrugs and says, "They always get back well in time. Mostly."

Clearly offering comfort is not Tess' strong suit. Sam pulls out the tube of sunscreen and passes it to Tess.

Tess pockets it. "Just overnight now, hear me? I need those back at beginning of morning shift."

"I understand," Sam says, carefully wrapping the mirrors in her spare shirt.

"See that you do. I don't think you'd enjoy the cost of going back on a deal," Tess says lightly. Sam has no doubt this is more than idle threat. "See ya round, old lady."

With that, Tess heads back towards the buildings.

"Tess?" Sam calls out, waiting for the woman to turn back. "Have you ever seen a woman walk past the boundary?"

Tess's eyebrows draw together like she's trying to figure out Sam's angle. "There was a woman once, not right in the head. She accidentally wandered past."

"And you saw her die? Saw this yourself?"

Tess gives her a sharp look. "I saw the body. She's buried there, past the trees. That aught to be enough for anyone."

For now, Sam supposes it is.

Beth is in the dormitory when Sam steps into the relative coolness of the interior space. The young girl looks up from a man's shirt she is carefully mending, staring at Sam like something from a horror story.

Sam automatically puts her hands up, moving to duck back into her cubicle and leave the child in peace when she changes her mind.

"Beth," Sam says, turning back to her. "Do you like sweets?"

She sees the battle going on in the girl's mind, the fight between being scared to death of Sam and the kid part of her that would probably do anything for a small scrap of comfort in this harsh place.

"All I need you to do is hold something for me," Sam assures her.

Beth looks around the room as if to make sure they are alone. "I want to see it up front," she says.

Sam smiles. "How about I give you half to eat first, and half after?"

Beth licks her lips. "Deal."

* * *

"Could you lift it just a little bit higher?" Sam asks, squinting at the reflection in the mirror in front of her.

Behind her, Beth lifts the second mirror. "Here?"

"Yes, perfect. Thank you."

They've been at it for two hours already, but Beth has yet to complain. Sam stretches her hand, trying to work past the numbness. Jack must not be too far out, because the nausea has leveled out, the tingling not spreading past her hands. She's just left with an inexplicable echo of panic. She shoves it aside. She's going to use what time she has.

They have to get the hell out of here.

"What…what exactly are you doing?" Beth asks, apparently getting bolder the longer Sam proves not to be the bogey monster.

Sam lifts the notebook in her hand a little, showing off the various schematics of the collar she's been drawing. It had taken half of Jack's carefully rationed Butterfinger just to convince Beth to dare to peel back the panel on Sam's collar, but it gave her a clearer view of how the warden's device must connect.

"I'm trying to figure out how the collars work," Sam says.

"Why?"

Sam stops to consider exactly how much she should share with Beth. The truth is that Beth is insignificant enough as to be invisible here. Or maybe it's just that seeing someone as young as Beth trapped here is probably what Sam hates about this place most.

"So I can take it off," Sam says.

She expects Beth to be scandalized, to suck in a breath and tell her that's suicide just like everyone else here has, Tess included. Instead, the girl simply shifts, her knee briefly touching Sam's back. "Do you think…," she starts to say, her voice impossibly small. "Do you really think it's possible?"

"Yes," Sam says because she needs to believe it just as much as Beth does. "Now lift the mirror a bit higher. I want to see the script right below the opening."

Sam focuses back down on the drawing. Some of the glyphs seem tantalizingly familiar and she's never wished more that she'd spent a little more time learning Goa'uld and a little less time assuming Daniel or Jonas would always be there to help.

They've been at it nearly another hour when the curtain to the cell sweeps back, someone barging in on the space.

"Carter! What the hell are you doing?"

Beth jumps, already on edge and unprepared for the raised voice. The mirror slips from her fingers, the precious glass shattering as it impacts the floor.

Sam jumps up from the stool, spinning to see Jack in the doorway. Damn, she should have paid more careful attention to the resolution of her symptoms, should have known he was getting close. She just got too caught up in her work, in the relief of having something productive to focus on.

Sam shifts in front of Beth, shielding her from anger she won't understand. But Sam understands. It's fear pumping directly into his already festering anger, the pressing image of her body on the floor, seizing.

She shakes the memory out of her head, feeling a beat of guilt.

"Sir," she says, raising one hand. "I know you're angry-."

He laughs. "Yeah, you would, wouldn't you?"

She flinches against his acid tone, the spike of anger underlying it.

He takes another step towards her and her first instinct is to back away, but she forces herself to hold her ground. "In case the order wasn't clear enough the first time, Major, you are not to do _anything_ to your collar without my express permission. You got that?"

He hasn't barked at her like a cadet in years and she has to swallow back her indignation. "Yes, sir," she enunciates, crisp and perfectly clear.

His jaw clenches and for a moment she's sure he's going to reach out and physically shake her, but he simply turns on his heel and ducks out of the cell.

It's only after he's gone that Sam registers that he'd been out of breath like he'd run here, been chased here by panic long before he knew what she was doing.

Beth makes a snuffling sound.

"Shhh," Sam says, turning to the girl. "It's okay."

Beth is shaking like a leaf, and after a moment's hesitation, Sam pulls her into her arms, resting her chin on her head. It's the first human contact she's had in weeks, and it doesn't escape her notice how good the warmth of another body feels.

"I'll tell them I broke the mirror, I promise," Sam murmurs, smoothing the girl's hair back. "They won't even know you helped me."

Mirrors are like gold around here, worth a hell of lot more than one girl's life.

* * *

Jack doesn't return to their cell until well after dark.

He ignores the mostly cold bowl of food she's kept for him, instead crossing over to their hiding spot, pulling out their rudimentary map. She watches him mark the locations he traveled to today on the map, a distance at least three times that of the nearby mine, and there it is in careful ink, the exact length of their tether.

"I didn't know," he says, lingering much longer over the task than it requires.

At first she has no idea what he's talking about, but then the memory rises up like he's willing her to see it.

Jack had wanted to rip the wagon driver's head off when he realized just how far from the compound they were going, when it registered what it must be doing to her. But even that he couldn't risk, giving the guard a reason to punish him. His hands were tied. And then to come racing back only to find her being so damn reckless?

She knows why he lost his temper.

"I never would have… I didn't know." He may be pissed at her, but he'd never be petty enough to do something like this consciously. This wasn't punishment, but he's scared to death she thinks it was.

"I know you didn't, sir," she reassures him.

The small absolution doesn't help though. He's beginning to realize that even his unconscious decisions have the power to hurt her. To get her killed.

She's not sure anymore if the nausea rolling in her stomach is his or her own.

He takes a careful breath. "Did you figure anything out?" he asks.

"What?"

"With the collar."

His voice is calm and even and she knows this is the closest he will get to an apology.

She pulls out her notebook, flipping the pages open to the drawings and words she can't understand. "No," she admits. She looks up at him, needing him to see that she hasn't given up. "Not yet."

He gives her a ghost of a smile. "Then I guess we keep trying," he says, turning his back so he's sitting in the small square of light from the moons. His collar gleams in the light as she shifts closer to get a better look, her hand lowering to his shoulder to steady herself.

His hand presses down on top of hers. "Just no futzing, okay?"

She squeezes his shoulder. "Looking only, I promise."

"Okay," he says, his hand leaving hers.

She starts to draw.


	4. Chapter 4

Day Eleven

Like most bullies, Tess doesn't do her own dirty work. There are women of much more uneven tempers and greater physical skill who will get there much faster on their own with just the right encouragement. Sam knows to watch her back from the moment she hands over the shards of glass carefully wrapped up in a piece of cloth.

"Clumsy, are you?" Tess says, something like pity in her eye. "The owner won't be happy."

"Seven years bad luck," Sam says with a careless shrug. There's nothing she can do to fix it now.

Tess smiles. "Oh, you have no idea."

It's the one loophole in this entire system. The men can't fight, and it's assumed the women won't. That it isn't inherently part of their nature. Just like the women won't run.

But even the women can be pushed too far.

Sam doesn't even realize how much she is spoiling for a fight until they come for her. There are three of them, so they get a few good shots in on her here and there, but Sam is more than a match for them. She has the benefit of two important things on her side—an even temper and the best hand to hand training the Air Force has to offer.

She has two of them on the ground and the third well on their way when Tess finally steps in to stop it.

"That's enough," she says, looking at Sam with something close to admiration. "I think she got the message."

For the first time in days, Sam smiles, _really_ smiles, feeling the pull on her bruised face. Someone certainly got a message, but Sam doesn't think that's her. She lets go of the third woman and she scurries back into the crowd.

By the doorway, two guards are grumbling at the end of the fight, money exchanging hands over the outcome.

"Show's over!" Hattie shouts. "Get back to work!"

Sam ignores Hattie. She decides she's earned a bit of a break. And even if she hasn't, who's going to stop her?

Young Beth darts forward, her eyes wide. She surprises Sam by holding out a cold cloth. "For your face," she says, and Sam can see it, the awe and gratitude in her young face. Sam wonders if she's the first person to keep her word, to stick up for Beth in her short, rough life.

"Thank you," Sam says, taking the cloth and pressing it to her cheek.

As she walks out the laundry, the women silently step aside to let her pass. For the first time since setting foot here, she doesn't feel the need to watch her back as she goes.

She'd almost forgotten what it feels like not to be a victim.

She doesn't plan on forgetting again.

* * *

Sam has the beginnings of a black eye when the wagons pull in that evening. If it had been anyone else, someone a little less able to protect themselves, she thinks it could have been much worse.

All she knows is that Beth would have paid a hell of a lot more in her place.

Jack steps up next to her, his eyes on her bruised face. "Carter, what happened?"

"You should see the other girls," she quips.

"Carter," he says, touching her arm, but somewhere raised voices break out, easily filtering through the cloth walls. He sighs. "Let's get out of here."

She follows him outside, walking away from the bunkhouse until the sounds fade to gentle background noise. At the edge of the stream he stops, turning to look at her.

"Your back," he says. "That's why they've all been staring at me like I'm a monster. Why the men won't meet my eye."

"Yes," she says.

They're pariahs, both of them. The men here, for all their backwards thinking, are still innately programmed with a sense of chivalry, as some might call it, an instinct to protect their own. This whole skewed system wouldn't work otherwise.

"And this?" he says, his fingers stopping just short of touching her cheek.

"For the broken mirror," she admits.

He swears under his breath, turning back to look at the stream. "I'm sorry, Carter. I'm not dealing with this particularly well am I?"

"It's okay, sir. I understand." Neither of them have been dealing with this very well.

He's trapped here in more ways than one, and right on the tail of an unwelcome blending with a Tok'ra? She gets it. He shouldn't even be here. They all fooled themselves that Jack O'Neill can handle anything, even weeks of torture and painful withdrawal. Each of them had been too willing to accept his front.

But out here? Having to deal with this impossible situation? Someone, no matter how unwilling, digging into his mind, stealing his thoughts? He's falling apart, no matter how much he's trying to hide it, even from himself.

"God," Jack says, looking over at her. "You probably actually do understand."

It's not a relief for him though. It scares him. She tries not to think too hard about why.

* * *

" _Because I will find the answers. Even if I have to dig them out_ _."_

Sam slaps her hands over her ears as the sinister, symphonic voice fills her mind. It doesn't help though, because it's coming from the inside, echoing outwards.

The connection is getting louder. She doesn't know if that is Jack making it worse by trying so hard to hide things from her, or if it's her, if she's just getting more receptive. Weaker.

The long, quiet night hours of watch are no longer the safe haven they had once been because she sees it all now. _Feels_ it all. The nightmares that chase him every night without fail. It's too much. She can't just sit and watch, wait to see if he might actually accept her meager attempt at comfort just this once.

In his sleep, he twitches against the remembered horror and Sam gets to her feet, shoving through the canvas door cover, stumbling out into the cool night air. The temperature plummets dangerously here at night, but not even the bitter bite against her cheeks is enough to shake the memories that chase her.

He lied. Lied to all of them.

Everyone at the SGC knew that what happened to Jack in Baal's fortress must have been bad, but even in her darkest imaginings Sam couldn't have come up with something as twisted as the truth, a truth Jack so carefully hid from all of them. The horror of physical pain that is easily outstripped by the psychological game Baal played on him—the careful, seductive pull of the sarcophagus, the incessant splintering of everything Jack could lay claim to in himself as good, as _human_.

All for answers Jack didn't have, and one tender secret that never should have been his to keep.

She understands so much better now the flicker of distaste in Yu's flat eyes at the mere mention of Baal's name, an evil even something as twisted as Yu couldn't stomach. She understands the edge of fear in the Tok'ra's gestures when they said rescuing Jack from Baal would be impossible.

 _He is far beyond our reach._

They knew. They all knew what Baal was capable of, what Jack would have to endure.

Sam slides down the rough wall of the building, sits there and listens to the ache of Jack's troubled sleep, acid and knives and bright white light. She draws her knees tight up into her chest, hands pressed over her lips, trying not to make the slightest sound when all she wants to do is scream, "Stop it, stop it, stop it!"

But the images don't end, just morph into new horrors, longer days dragging on, the penetrating certainty that no one is coming, that this will _never_ end. She's gently rocking now, back and forth, back and forth, refusing to acknowledge the bile burning the back of her throat.

"Carter."

She starts violently at Jack's voice, no longer in her mind, but ringing in her ears. She doesn't know how he's managed to sneak up on her. She must have missed the dream ending, his shift towards consciousness, too lost in what she's seen to notice.

He steps out of the darkness of the doorway, into the meager light of the moons.

Hastily pushing back up to her feet, Sam swipes at the moisture on her cheeks, trying to slow her breathing, anything to hide the fact that she knows now. Knows his secrets. Not just supposition and echoing hints anymore, but tangible truths in the harsh Technicolor of memory burned forever into his mind. And hers.

She can feel the knife now, just like he can. Over and over and over again.

She wants to rub at her chest, dig out the aching spots where the scars should be, scars he doesn't have. Nothing but phantoms.

"You know," he says, his voice hollow. It isn't really a question.

She doesn't want to. God, she doesn't. "I'm sorry," she whispers, trying to bite back her horror, not wanting to add the weight of hers to his already unbearable load.

She feels his reaction, the tightening of his gut at being caught out with these particular memories, the resigned understanding that he can't keep anything from her, the impotent anger that his privacy is being so relentlessly violated, and by _her_ of all people. ' _Fuck_ ,' she hears ring clearly in her mind.

She turns away from him, her nails digging painfully into her palms.

"It's my fault," she says, her ever-present companion guilt rising unexpectedly, far too quickly for her to remember the lies she's supposed to cling to, the things she should never admit, no matter what. "Everything he did to you is my fault."

Everything hiccups for a second, a wave of disorientation through her brain like a clumsy shifting of gears and she knows that despite everything, Jack hadn't expected her to be that blunt, to remind them both of how the whole mess started in the first place.

 _Over my dead body._

"No," he denies just a moment too late. The damage is already done, his thoughts betraying him. She can see her own face leaning down over him. _Sir, please._

She swallows hard against the tightness in her throat. "It's okay to blame me," she says, willing herself numb. Untouchable. "I understood why you wanted nothing to do with me when you came back."

Something shifts, something she can't quite put her finger on. She hears him take a step back as if considering leaving, but distance isn't a choice they have anymore.

He's struggling, only it's not the dreams he's trying to hide. There's no point. He's desperately trying to hold on to his anger, and it's only now as it begins to crack that she finally understands. The anger is real, but she sees now the way he's been consciously feeding it, keeping it bright and harsh and dangerous and never far from the surface. It's a front, a buffer, an impenetrable façade meant to keep her from seeing anything else, a performance he's been holding this whole time just for her benefit. He's been trying to protect her just as much as she has him.

But the anger just isn't enough to hide it anymore.

" _You only do this for her," Kanan observes, digging ruthlessly into Jack's subconscious, spreading in and taking over every tiny corner, no matter how heavily guarded. "Even though you abhor our blending and would rather die…you do this for her."_

 _Jack struggles, fighting the intrusion but he's far too weak to hold Kanan off. Goddamn snake._

" _You must care for her a great deal."_

 _And he can't hide it, not from either of them._

The memory catches Sam off guard, soft and confessional in a sea of bad experiences. She puts out a hand to the building to steady herself.

Turning, she looks up into Jack's gaze where he stands frozen in the doorway as if caught out mid-retreat. He doesn't flinch though, doesn't turn away, even though he has to know she's heard it. _Felt_ it.

Not breaking eye contact, she steps towards him until she's standing in front of him. Way too close, but she can't bring herself to care. Her fingers unerringly lift to the spot just to the right of his heart, the location of the first knife. The first of many. She presses her palm down on the spot, feeling the warmth of his skin through the worn shirt. She sways slightly, her forehead brushing his chin.

Jack reaches for her arm, holding her steady. "Carter," he says, barely a breath, a warning, a plea.

She closes her eyes, feels the warmth of his thoughts flutter across her skin, affection and familiarity and yearning all closely tangled together. It's such an abrupt shift from the dark, haunted thoughts that she feels a bit light-headed.

"You know why I asked you to do it," she says. "You have to know that I-."

His hand clenches on her arm. "Don't," he says, voice hoarse.

It's too loud now though, far too real, and she can't ignore it any more than she can ignore the feel of him under her fingers. Doesn't _want_ to ignore it. She slides her hand up to his neck, skimming her thumb along his jaw and she can feel every nuance of sensation from both sides, knows exactly how she's affecting him. It's heady.

He needs this contact just as much as she does—the dreams, this captivity, all of it has left him shaken, teetering. She thinks that's what gives her the nerve to do it, this certainty that erases every doubt that has ever held her back, every feeble excuse she's erected between them. She lifts her chin that last fraction of an inch and her lips have finally found his.

There's a beat of hesitation on his part, but she can feel what's underneath and it's enough. She shifts closer, pressing her advantage and then he's kissing her back, his hands on her arms pulling her closer. She stumbles, her senses seared by the overflow of information.

He backs her against the wall, his hand carefully cradling the back of her head and she's surrounded by him, the heat of his body, the thrum of his thoughts, the swell of desire—all of it threatening to suck her down, drown her. She welcomes it, this chance to stop fighting and struggling and _pretending_ and just let it all go for once. Finally.

Her hands find his hips, pulling him tight against her, the kiss deepening, sparked by desperation and driven by need. It's a blur of sensation and contact.

Jack's mouth is warm as he works his way down her neck and she lets out a shuddering breath of appreciation. Her fingers find the hem of his shirt, tugging it free. She's finally splayed her hands across his stomach when Jack's fingers tighten to the point of pain on her shoulders. It takes her a moment to register his taut stillness, the fact that he's stopped completely. His breath is heavy near her neck.

"Jack," she says, her hands sliding up the back of his shirt, drawing him closer. Encouraging.

Don't stop.

His hands find her arms, firmly pulling her hands free from his shirt as he steps away from her.

"What is it?" she asks, flinching against the intrusion of cool night air between them.

He's staring at her neck.

She takes a step towards him. "You want this," she says, not understanding this abrupt switch. She can feel the desire still there, tangled with her own. She _knows_ he wants this.

His laugh is slightly ragged, and there's the anger again, grating like sandpaper against her sensitized skin. "It's not like I can deny it, can I?" he says, one finger sliding along the edge of her collar.

She sucks in an unsteady breath at the touch, her mind still swamped with lingering echoes of him, battling with this new sharp edge. "I don't…" She swallows, trying to fight the dizziness. "I don't understand."

"The collar," he says, and she doesn't get this regret he's emanating. The look he gives her is tempered with affection, but doesn't mask his utter certainty. "This isn't you."

She feels a chill rise across her skin, those words effectively clearing the haze from her mind. "What?"

"This isn't you," he repeats, letting go of her.

She moves back a step, leaning against the rough wood of the building, welcoming the press of hard angles into her flesh. Solid, concrete. She shakes her head. "That's not true."

"You would never…," he trails off, awkward, but earnest. "We both know that, Carter."

It isn't the nagging possibility that the collar could be influencing her that she finds so horrifying in this moment, but rather the complete certainty she finds when she lets herself examine his thoughts. She can see it perfectly, the vision he has of her, the fact that he's never really let himself believe that she feels the same for him, as _much_.

Cold and distant. Isn't that how it's been between them for months now?

The collar is the only explanation he can fathom. He thinks she's unduly influenced by his thoughts. That he somehow pushed her to this. _Made_ her do it. He honestly doesn't think this is her, that she would ever do something like this. Doesn't know that she was weak enough to imagine a moment like this long before someone slapped a collar on her neck.

 _This isn't you._

God.

She lifts a hand to her mouth, lips still warm with the taste of him.

"Carter," Jack says—cautious, worried, like he doesn't know what to expect from her anymore. Like she's a stranger.

 _This isn't you._

She closes her eyes. This would all be so much easier to handle without his thoughts bleeding into her mind, his concern and doubts twining so intimately with her certainty, undercutting any argument she could ever make for why he's wrong.

 _Is he?_

Shaking her head, she pushes off the wall, moving back towards the door to the dormitory.

"Hey," he says, reaching out to stop her.

"I'm fine," she insists, her voice thin as she pulls against his grip on her arm. This isn't a fit of pique; it's surrender. Can't he see that?

His hand doesn't leave her arm though. She stares at it there, still fighting the lingering urge to turn back into his touch. She just can't think straight with him so close, not right now. She shakes her head, horrified to feel the press of tears. "I'm just…"

"What?" he asks, his voice soft with earnestness. _Carter, talk to me._

She tries to smile, to brazen through this, but all the empty gesture does is squeeze out a tear from the corner of her eye. She turns her face away from him, batting at the mortifying drop of water.

"I'm just really tired," she manages to say.

At best, it's a half-truth.

Jack isn't fooled. "Sam," he says, and God does it hurt, this cautious, painful opening he's offering her despite his vision of her actions, despite the fact that he's already had more than enough secrets stolen from him tonight.

It's all jumbling and growing in her mind, the torture, the helplessness, the need, all of it hers and his and everything in between. She presses a hand to her forehead. "Do you think we could just...not do this right now?"

His hand drops from her arm, but doesn't erase the worry he's emanating. "Sure. Of course." He's scared that if he pushes, she's going to break.

She not sure he's wrong.

"I'm going back inside now," she says, carefully not looking at him, concentrating on getting one foot in front of the other.

He doesn't follow.

* * *

Jack gives her a few solid hours of space, and by the time he finally follows her inside she's still sleepless, sitting against the back wall, staring unseeing into the darkness.

"It hasn't gone away, has it?" he says.

She feels her heart stutter, too jarred by the statement to remember to play possum. "What?"

"The headache," he clarifies, the weight of his stare boring into her.

She breathes out, feeling her heart rate settle. "No, it hasn't," she admits.

There's a soft shuffle of sound from the other side of the cell. She imagines he's picked something up, is toying with it in his fingers. "It must get…noisy."

She knows she should make some crack about his brain not being that complex, but it's beyond her at the moment. She's still got Baal's voice circling in her mind. _It will be far worse next time._ Her fingers dig into her shins.

"It's not that bad," she lies, desperate for him to believe it.

After a moment she feels his eyes leave her. She lets out breath.

She feels the air shift, can feel the change in pressure as he sits down next to her. Near, but not touching. Just like always. "Can't sleep?" he asks.

She shakes her head.

They fall into silence. She doesn't know how long they're sitting there before she finally notices the image hovering quietly at the back of her mind. She feels tension draining out of her shoulders, a dense quiet filling the room. The soothing sound of water lapping against a wood dock is quietly blotting out everything else.

A surprised huff escapes Sam's throat when she finally realizes exactly what that image is, where it's coming from. "Is that supposed to be soothing?" she asks.

There's a scruff of sound, his foot against the worn floorboards. "It's the most zen thing I know," he admits, something warm and wry and seductively comfortable lacing his tone. She gladly lets herself get lured in by it.

"Don't you mean boring?" she shoots back because this, of all things, is at least familiar. Easy.

He's scowling now, having his precious fishing so disparaged. "I never wanted to say anything, but Teal'c is a giant fibber. It's a really unattractive quality in a Jaffa."

Sam laughs, feeling the way it settles everything, makes breathing just a little bit easier. "When we get out of here, I'm telling him you said that."

"Tattle tale," Jack accuses, bumping her arm with his elbow.

It's the easiest conversation they've had in months, if not longer, and that's just as counter-intuitive and surprising as everything else between them.

She shifts, her hand sneaking into the crook of his arm, her fingers latching on to this lifeline he's offering. "Thank you," she says.

"For what?" he asks in his best clueless tone, but his fingers brush hers in quiet acknowledgment. _Anything_.

She knows this is the entire purpose of his act—proof that despite everything that happens between them or doesn't, this still works. They haven't broken anything.

"Think you can sleep?" he asks. It should be enough, the quiet, simple memory and this ease back in place between them.

She lowers her head to his shoulder, focusing in on the image in his mind. It's beautiful, calm and worn soft with the weight of memory, but also something else right underneath. Something like…possibility.

Nothing with Jack is ever unintentional.

 _You must care about her a great deal._

"Jack?" she asks. She doesn't know when he became Jack exactly, just knows that being inside his head renders it impossible to think of him as 'the Colonel', no matter how much safer it might be.

"Yeah?" he asks, his body stiffening slightly.

She doesn't want to ruin this ease they've recovered, knows dragging this back up is probably a bad idea. Still, she can't stand to leave it unspoken. She lets out a long breath. "You should know…you're wrong."

"About?"

She looks up at him. "Me."

Maybe he can't discount the collar's influence, maybe she can't either, but that doesn't change the fact that she's been teetering towards this for a long time.

He's staring back at her with something like fear, and she reaches out without thinking, her fingers brushing along his jaw.

She feels it, the painful echo of hope and stubborn refusal rising simultaneously in his chest in the face of her touch, but it's quickly subsumed by that much more benign sun-sparkled water and the soft hum of an old childhood ditty.

She doesn't press, pulling her hand back, lowering her cheek down to his shoulder. Closing her eyes, she allows the soothing cadence of his thoughts to lull her towards slumber. She feels it though, the moment before she drops off, the soft press of his face against the top of her head, the gentle thought behind it.

 _I wish I could believe that._


	5. Chapter 5

Day Twelve

When Sam wakes, it takes her a moment to place herself, to reconcile the warmth of someone else's body next to hers. At some point during the night they've shifted, Jack's back propped up against the corner, his arm tight across her back as she leans into him. She can feel the gentle rise and fall of his chest under her cheek.

For the first time since they've been here, the pain is nothing more than a manageable hum. She spends a moment just enjoying the sense of equilibrium, of calm, before cautiously reaching out with her mind, brushing up against his thoughts.

He's awake. And he knows she is too. Still, he isn't moving, keeping his breathing as carefully modulated as hers, taking this moment they have no right to.

She tries to feel embarrassment, regret…but all she's left with is a bizarre sense of relief. It feels like a pressure valve has been released somewhere, the screaming in her mind finally nothing more than a soft hum and she's not sure what to chalk that up to.

Instinctively, Sam's face presses slightly closer, the tiny movement echoed by the pressure of his fingers on her shoulder.

 _Good morning._

Outside, the bells ring, rousing the rest of the compound.

Neither of them moves.

"Another day," he eventually says, his voice quiet against the cacophony of the waking day.

"Another day," she echoes.

She gives herself one more moment to linger and then pushes up and out of his arms.

* * *

"You look better," Tess says, giving Sam a critical once over as she enters the laundry.

Sam raises an eyebrow at her, because despite the comforting, yet alien feeling of a full stomach on top of good solid sleep, there's still the tug in the skin around her eye to remind her of the bruising there.

Tess shrugs as if getting tag-teamed by three bullies is inconsequential in the larger scope of things. "I like the shiner on you. Makes you look like a right ol' Bessie."

"A Bessie?" Sam asks.

"Yeah, a Bessie," Tess repeats back like this is something Sam should understand. When Sam continues to stare at her with incomprehension, she shakes her head. "You are one queer old lady, Samantha Carter."

Sam rolls her eyes. Tess will doubtlessly never let a chance to remind everyone just who is older pass ever again.

Tess grins at her, slapping her on the shoulder. Then she nods, her expression sobering. "You look better."

"Which means you should both be getting on with work," Hattie snaps from behind them.

Tess gives Hattie a mocking little curtsey and wanders back to her station as slowly as humanly possible, pausing to bully and cajole here and there as she goes.

Sam returns to her station, giving timid Donna a smile in greeting as she pulls up the first batch of fabric to be rung dry. Donna darts her a nervous grin in return, her eyes quickly dropping back to the work in front of her.

Sam works steadily through the morning and almost has herself convinced that maybe she's _finally_ adjusting to the collar, but the fatigue finds her, the dull throb of pain rekindled by the beginning of second shift, morphing into nauseating spikes by the time the men return. One good meal and a few hours of sleep are not going to cure her.

At dusk, she meets Jack by the stream and the fallen log they have sort of unofficially claimed as their spot. They'd first come out here for meals as a way to strategize in privacy, and then because of the looks they both received, the way they have become outcasts of sorts. Upon reflection, it seems a bit like those misfit kids in school who always ate out behind the basketball courts because they were too cool for the cafeteria.

She smiles to herself at the image.

"What?" Jack asks, catching sight of it as he lowers himself next to her.

His hair is till damp at his collar from his nightly dunking. She can feel his uncertainty as he tries to gauge her mood, her mindset. For a moment she lets herself consider that she's the lucky one. The one thing she never has to do with him anymore is wonder.

She gives him a small smile. "I was just imagining us as the class rebels refusing to hang out with any of the other kids," she admits.

He stares back at her like this is the last thing he expects from her. He's equally surprised by the comment as much as her sudden honesty. She figures it's the least she owes him.

"Silly, I know," she says, looking back at her food.

He recovers quickly, nudging her with his elbow, the gesture at once playful and conspiratorial. "Something tells me you ate your lunches in study hall."

"Oh," she says, sliding him a look. "I think you'd be surprised."

Their eyes lock for a moment, sharing a smile before they turn back to their meals.

He's surprised by the ease, and she thinks maybe she should be too. It's easier to acknowledge just how far they'd let things slip now that he's _here_ , solid next to her as he teases her. Now that the cold distance between them finally seems to be thawing.

All it had taken was an all access pass to the mind of Jack O'Neill. The entire heinous truth. She fights the shudder working its way down her spine.

It hasn't all been Baal though. She knows that now. Some of this tension between them is even older, maybe since Daniel. Maybe she blamed Jack a little, for letting Daniel go, for giving up. For refusing to mourn. Distance was Jack's only coping mechanism long before Kanan.

She rubs at the pain echoing in her chest, and he doesn't miss it, his jaw tightening.

"I'm sorry," she says, knowing it needs to be said. The thought of letting things fester just isn't as appealing as it once was.

"For what?" he asks, back to sounding wary.

"For last night," she says.

He looks at her sharply, and Sam shakes her head when his thoughts automatically jump to the kiss. She feels the impact of that memory all over again, her body flushing warm and liquid.

"No. Not…that." She's not sorry for that. She should probably find that more alarming than she does. It's easier to just let the blame fall on the collar.

She takes a deep breath and it's a little embarrassing, just how much the mere flash of that memory can affect her. She clears her throat. "I meant the eavesdropping."

He looks away, his mind deliberately turning to the guards and tracking their movements, and she's thankful for the subterfuge. "It doesn't matter," he says, but she remembers those words that were horribly bitter upon reflection. _It's not like I can deny it, can I?_

"It matters," she says, digging the toe of her shoe into the dirt in frustration, hard little divots giving off puffs of dust. "I didn't have the right. It makes me no different than… _them_."

He tenses next to her, and she feels like she's betrayed him yet again, just referencing his experience with Kanan no matter how oblique. His thoughts get a little louder as he refocuses on the guards. "You don't have a choice, Carter. I know that."

It doesn't seem like enough of an excuse. "Maybe not," she says. "But I could have pretended not to hear. I didn't have to-."

His internal monologue stumbles as he turns to look at her, his eyes piercing. "Could you really?"

"What?" she asks, a little taken aback by his sudden intensity.

"Pretend."

She barely resists the urge to laugh. He's kidding her, right? She jabs at her stew with her spoon. "I've had years of practice, haven't I?"

That is probably a little more baldly stated than it needs to be, but she's getting really tired of this game they've been playing, no matter how thin the walls get. If she closes her eyes, she'll be able to feel it all again—his hand in her hair, body tight against hers.

She slowly releases a breath, forcing her attention back on her bowl. Jack, for his part, has chosen to redouble his efforts to shut her out, his conscious mental recitation of strategy rumbling through her mind.

It's getting a little loud. Her stomach protests with a lurch, and Sam sets her food aside unfinished. Leaning forward, she rubs at her neck, the tension building there again.

His thoughts stumble, and she lets out a breath of relief.

"How bad is it?" he asks.

She peers up at him, ready to give him her standard answer, but something just won't let her today. Maybe she's not so good at pretending as she thinks. At least not anymore. "What do you want to hear?"

It all depends on who she's talking to, after all. She's ready to give Colonel O'Neill solid assurances that she's holding on. She's fine. Capable. She won't break. No way, no how. Sir.

But if this is Jack asking, that man who held her so carefully in the dark, she may just have to admit the truth.

She's more relieved than she should be when he doesn't choose either, turning back to his food and finishing the meal in contemplative silence. Relieved, maybe, because even _she_ still doesn't know which man she wants to answer.

Leaning back against the log, she watches the sky fade toward darkness.

* * *

Sam rolls over on the thin pallet, trying to find a comfortable position, but it's eluding her as much as sleep.

Things have a way of getting harder this time of day, the fatigue from a day's labor combining with her poor sleeping habits to catch up with her. She should be handling all of this better, and it's just another sign that something isn't right.

She barely catches the rustle of sound behind her over the jagged hum in her mind.

"Shove over, blanket hog," Jack says, sitting down next to her.

She rolls onto her back, looking over at him.

"I don't think we really need to keep watch anymore," he says, stretching out next to her, hands folded over his stomach.

His voice is light, cavalier like this isn't a big deal. She isn't fooled. They haven't really needed to keep watch for a while now, so that isn't what this is really about. "Sir," she says, a question rolled up in that simple word.

She feels him shrug, his arm brushing hers. "You slept easier last night."

She can't deny that. It was the first night they hadn't slept in shifts, hadn't spend hours scheming and plotting, desperately looking for some way out. And the simple fact is that she feels more focused, together here with him than she has at any other time, like the fact they've stopped struggling against each other somehow eases the pain. It makes everything quieter. For a while at least. Enough to actually sleep.

But maybe that's just an excuse.

"We will get out of here," he says.

She doesn't know if that is supposed to be reassurance or just a warning. Because when they do get out of here, all of this will have to be forgotten and locked up in yet another compartment.

"I know," she says.

She can see the delicate, dangerous line he's drawn, wanting to comfort her if he can, be here, but at the same time not wanting her to do anything she'll have to regret later.

What she's beginning to realize is that it's never the things you do that you regret, but the things you don't. The things you do…you deal with them, get past them, accept the facts. It's the things you don't that nag and fester and build up. And you just can't ever get past them. She finally sees that.

Next to her, Jack shifts. "I want the truth," he says, sounding like he's come to a decision. "How bad is it?"

She closes her eyes. "It's getting worse," she confesses. "The pain."

He blows out a careful breath and she knows this is the last thing he wanted to hear. "We're going to get out of here," he repeats.

It's not quite a bald-faced lie. She just knows he doesn't quite believe it himself, no matter how hard he's trying.

She rolls towards him, her forehead touching his shoulder. "We will," she agrees.

He doesn't call her a liar.

* * *

" _Will it always be like this?" she asks, her slender, delicate fingers dancing across his thigh._

" _Yes," he breathes, a surge of heat building in his body, lodging in his chest as he looks at her—looks at her and lets the lies flow and build around her like a veil. Necessary._

 _He touches her skin just to see if he still can._

" _Always," he promises._

 _She smiles._

 _When she sleeps, he slips out of her bed and disappears._

 _Their parts have played out._

 _  
_

* * *

Day Thirteen

Jack is dreaming.

His hand is lazily moving up and down her back, exploring each angle and plane, lingering in hollows and curves. His thoughts are wandering aimlessly, dangerously, drifting in the drowsy dawn, sweeping her along with them.

She feels the impulse to slide her hand across his stomach, to burrow into his side. He's wondered what it would feel like, her palm flush against his flesh, fingers digging in. His mind imagines it, recreating it in what should be the safety of his own mind. The images accelerate, jump ahead, morph into breathless flashes of sensation, and she can't stop herself pressing closer to him, her breath hitching. It's enough to break the spell, Jack's mind snapping fully awake.

His body stiffens, a curse rising on his tongue. She can feel the apology he's cobbling together under his embarrassment and anger.

She lifts her hand, fingers hovering just above his lips to stop the words she doesn't want to hear. "Don't," she whispers. None of this is his fault.

He bites back the words, but none of the blame, his hand falling away from her back. _This was a really bad idea_ , he thinks.

She's not really in a position to argue that point, so lifts her head, shifting her weight off of him to enable his escape. He slides carefully away from her, disappearing outside.

Another day, she thinks, gingerly sitting up. Her body protests the movement, her head swimming. It takes a moment to regain her equilibrium. It's only when she does that she notices her hand. It's lying against her thigh and for a second she thinks she's slept on it, cut off the circulation, but she doesn't feel pins and needles. It isn't numb. It's shaking.

She can't make it stop.

She tucks it in against her stomach, covering with her other hand, her mind reeling with the possibilities. _No_.

Behind her, Jack reappears. He's carefully gathered everything back together, and she only wishes she could say the same. She pushes herself into motion. Just another morning, she tells herself, reaching for her shoes with her good hand.

"Carter?" Jack asks, having taken no time at all to register that something is off.

"Yeah?" she asks, trying to keep her voice casual.

She can feel his eyes boring into her back. "What's going on?"

She turns to see him, her eyes widened with innocence she can't hope he'll buy. She tries anyway. "Nothing."

His eyes narrow, posture shifting. There's no softness left, she thinks. His eyes sweep down her body, lingering on her arm tucked carefully across her stomach. "Carter, show me your hand."

They stare across the room at each other and for a moment she considers refusing, but he just takes another step closer to her and she lets go of the stubborn impulse with a sigh. This is not a battle she is going to win. She dutifully lifts it, the trembling hand with fingers unnaturally twisted in towards her palm.

"When did that start?" he asks, his voice strangely detached as he crouches down next to her.

"It's new," she says, deciding not to mention the slight tingling in her foot.

He absorbs this, his mind clinging to the process of simple intelligence gathering. "What is it?" He takes her hand in both of his as if he may be able to still the damning movement through sheer will alone.

She stares down at her hand in his. "If I had to guess? Some form of decreased neurological function." She says it calmly, almost clinically, perfectly matching his tone.

But underneath, his panic squeezes at her chest, the need to do something building painfully, layering upon her own. He considers ditching the useless daily stint at the mines to search for options. There has to be something they haven't considered yet. Some avenue of escape. He flips through the possibilities with almost frantic urgency.

"You can't," she says. Any action on his part will only earn him punishment. Earn _her_ punishment.

She looks up at him and she knows she hasn't hidden her fear well enough because his jaw clenches. It's twisting and building in him—impotent rage and frustration. It's too familiar, too soon to be feeling something like this again. Trapped. No one coming. Watching her suffer when there is absolutely nothing he can do about it. Knowing that the only things he can do will only make things worse.

He shifts, trying to push back to his feet. "I need to-," he starts to say and she knows he's scrambling to get away from this. She also knows he can't.

She reaches for his arm, stalling his escape. "Jack," she says, her voice unsteady.

He meets her eyes and like a wall crumbling somewhere, the underlying soft hush of his thoughts clamors forward unexpectedly, clear and loud and complete. She doesn't even realize until this moment just how much he's been holding back from her, just how hard he works to shield her. Even more surprising than this sudden willing revelation, is the ferocity of them, the depth.

She falters under it, swaying forward toward the ground, his hand steadying at her elbow. "I'm sorry," he mumbles as he helps her regain her equilibrium. With ruthless efficiency, he pushes her back out of his mind.

She can still feel the echoes under her skin, reverberating in her bones.

 _You left her behind._

She lifts a hand to her pounding head.

No one is coming for them. They have to get out of here together, or not at all.

"I think… I think I may have an idea," she admits. An idea he is sure to hate as much as she does, but it's the only option they have left.

"What?"

She swallows against the spike of nausea in her stomach. "I need you to give me one day."

"Carter," he objects.

"Just…trust me," she says. "Please."

His hand squeezes her arm. "Okay," he says. "One day."

* * *

Sam is late for first shift.

She keeps her hand tucked into her pocket, not wanting to see the looks of pity, the way eyes fall away from her as if already forgetting she ever existed.

"Tess," Sam asks, stepping up behind the woman at her station. "May we speak?"

Tess's eyes dart over Sam, her face creasing with what Sam might call concern in any other woman. In Tess, it translates more as opportunism. "Sure," she says with a careless shrug. "Don't got anything better to do at the moment." She shoots Hattie a beatific smile laced with challenge.

Hattie predictably ignores both of them, Sam having proven to be way more trouble than she's worth these last few days.

Stepping outside, Sam holds up a tube of lip balm, making her terms clear from the onset.

"And what exactly you want in exchange?" Tess asks, her eyes following the prize as Sam demonstrates it.

"For now? Information."

Tess's lips curl. "Talk is cheap, but not free."

Sam doesn't hand over the tube. Words first, payment second. "The woman who cleans the warden's house. How did she get that job?"

For all Tess is a pain in the ass and a bully, she is not stupid. "You're digging in the wrong place, sweetheart," she says, understanding in her eyes. "She's simple."

"Simple?" Sam repeats.

"Mute," Tess clarifies. "The most priceless characteristic to be found in a woman. She can't spill any secrets."

Sam can't say she's surprised, just disappointed. Another avenue cut off. "And…the other women?"

Tess smiles, baring her uneven teeth. "Now _that_ is a different set of skills all together."

Sam looks away, her jaw working as she runs through all the permutations, all of them leading her back to the same unwelcome answer. She holds out the tube of lip balm. "I'm going to need a change of clothes."

Tess looks her over critically. "You'll need a hell of a lot more than that. Have you looked at yourself lately?"

"I don't have any choice," she hisses and Tess's façade cracks slightly, just enough for Sam to see the truth in her eyes. She's seen this before, what Sam is suffering, this crawling disintegration. "I need to get in there to look around."

"You can't do this," Tess repeats. "No way, no how." She considers the tube in Sam's hand, snatching it and slipping it into the safety of her blouse. "But I can."

"What?"

Tess holds Sam's eye, speaking bluntly. "The warden, he likes to drink quite a bit, and after, he usually falls asleep. He's a pretty light sleeper, but I could probably poke around some. For a price." She pats her blouse. "A price a hell of a lot higher than soft lips."

The knowledge of exactly what Tess is offering to do burns in Sam's stomach. "I couldn't ask you to do that."

Zeroing in on Sam's weakness with cruel efficiency, Tess grabs Sam's arm, pulling her shaking hand into view. "Couldn't you?" she challenges, her gaze sharp as her fingers dig into Sam's wrist.

Sam tugs her arm, trying to break her grip, but Tess is relentless, holding her in place. Sam is running out of time, and they both know it.

When Sam stops fighting, her arm falling limp, Tess nods. "Now, what exactly am I looking for?"

* * *

She fills Jack in on the plan, looking for any flicker of distaste, the slightest sign of disapproval, but all he says is, "Necessary measures, Major," a sentiment perfectly reflected by this thoughts.

It doesn't feel like enough of an excuse.

She's not asking Tess to do anything she hasn't done before, but it still feels like the worst kind of exploitation. She hates this place with more passion each passing day, but not quite as much as she's learning to hate herself.

"When?" he asks.

She sighs, rolling her neck. "Tomorrow night."

His hand touches her back, palm flat and warm against her spine. "We don't have a choice, Carter. You know that."

She turns to look at him. "Don't we?" Isn't there _always_ a choice?

He glances at her hand. _Not one that I'll accept._

"Let me guess," she says, her voice thick with bitterness. "Earth needs me?" Special rules for special people.

He stares back at her, and she knows he'll tell her whatever she needs to hear. He nods. "Earth needs you."

 _I need you._

She closes her eyes.

* * *

 _He catches her in the small servants corridor, the narrow space closing in around them._

 _He smiles gently at her. "You serve your master well."_

 _She blushes, a faint spill of pink under the freckles on her cheeks. "I do my best."_

 _His fingers trail down her arm and she shivers, an untouched maiden. "Yes," he says, his lips near her temple. "Yes, you do."_

 _She doesn't pull away._

 _  
_

* * *

Day Fourteen

Sam is less than useful at the laundry anymore. Her right hand is useless, her left awkward and losing ground. She still gets up, pretends to eat breakfast, and walks to the laundry. She isn't sure who the pretense is for anymore.

Tess meets her gaze only once the entire day, just before end of shift, as if gauging Sam's nerve.

Sam doesn't look away.

* * *

The compound is quiet, the other prisoners long asleep.

Jack and Sam don't talk, sitting side by side against the wall of their cell, tracking the passage of time. They've long since talked the particulars to death, carefully dancing around topics better left unspoken.

"It's time," he eventually says.

Sam breathes out.

He hands her the last of their disposable supplies—Tess's payment. "You're sure you don't want me to come with you?" he asks.

Sam shakes her head. Tess isn't one for trusting, or changing plans last minute. She's never met Jack, and this isn't the time for introductions. "It'll be fine."

"Two hours," he says. It's how long his latitude will hold against his caution.

"Two hours," she agrees, pushing to her feet.

She takes the long way to the laundry to avoid guards.

Tess is already waiting for her. Her hair is falling down her back and it makes her look disturbingly young.

"Let's see it," she demands, hands greedy, and all illusions of vulnerability disappear.

Sam holds out the bundle of supplies.

Tess paws through them, eventually nodding. "Okay. I couldn't see nothing like the collars. There was a locked safe I couldn't get into. But I found these sitting out on the desk." She holds up long rolls of paper tied with leather thongs. "I'll get Madge to sneak 'em back in."

Sam takes the papers, smoothing them open on a worktable. "Madge?"

"The one that does all the dustin' and such." Tess grins. "Maybe she ain't quite so simple as I said."

Sam smiles absently, staring down at the papers in front of her. They're maps, schematics of the compound buildings. Not quite what she was hoping for, but they're a start. She tries to copy the maps into her notebook, but her hand is just shaking too much. Tess reaches over and takes the pen from her without a word.

Sam watches her work. "Don't you want out of here too?"

Tess doesn't look up from the paper, the pen tracing the long undulating line that is the stream. "Some of us belong here," she says.

Sam knows most of the women here haven't committed a crime. Rather they are here to share in the price of their husband's offenses. Apparently this culture takes the whole 'in sickness and health' thing serious to an extreme degree. But others, they earned their place as much as the men.

"Plus," Tess says with a shrug. "I don't have anywhere else to go." There's no self-pity in the words, nothing but the casual facts of her life.

Three square meals and a clean place to sleep. Sam supposes there are much worse things out there. But it's still slavery. Helplessness.

Having finished with a copy of the prison compound, Tess flips to the next—a map of the surrounding terrain. A path winds to the north and the mines, another to the south, trailing off towards something called Parth.

"What's Parth?" Sam asks, gesturing at the word.

Tess gives her a strange look. "The capital seat. The courthouse where we were sentenced?"

"Right," Sam says. "Fourteen days by wagon train."

"Seemed even longer in the doing," Tess mutters, biting down on her lower lip in concentration as she pens in the location of the mine.

Sam's eye is caught by a small symbol to the distant east of the prison grounds, over the next ridge. "What about this?" Sam asks.

Tess frowns at the symbol, her fingers brushing across them without comprehension. "Just more letters, right?"

But it isn't a letter or a word. It's a symbol. A symbol Sam knows. Taking the notebook back from Tess, she flips to the front. On the third page, she finds her sketch of the symbol she'd seen on Methos moments before they'd been captured.

 _We need to make them disappear._

"Naquadah," she says, remembering the tingle of her fingers.

"What's that?" Tess asks, frowning at the foreign word.

"The special ore the men mine," Sam says. "We call it naquadah."

Tess peers down at the symbol on the map. "That ain't where the mine is."

"No," Sam says, the answers finally slipping into place. "It's where they store the ore. And where they transport it off world."

"Off _what_?"

Sam looks at Tess, giving her a grin. "You didn't really think I was from around here, did you?"

"Oh, you're from _somewhere_ , sure enough," Tess says. "Somewhere loony."

Sam laughs, giddiness building in her chest at what this all means. "You have no idea."

She stares down at the simple glyph, having a hard time believing it. Here it finally is, their way home, their best bet. Only it's meaningless if she can't leave this damn prison. She spreads the compound schematics in front of her again, her eyes taking in the details. There's an answer here, she knows it.

"What're you looking for?" Tess asks.

Sam shakes her head. She'll know it when she sees is.

Or when she _doesn't_.

There's something missing. Something not right. She stares down at the maps, tries to make sense of them. She rolls her neck, rubbing at the aching flesh just before the collar, trying to ease the tension.

The boundary.

Every detail of the camp is carefully recreated, the stream, the buildings, the graveyard, the individual stalls in the barns. But what isn't there is a boundary. What isn't there is a power generator, a central control.

Could it possibly be that simple?

"Did you see _anything_ like this?" Sam asks Tess, pointing at her collar. "Anything made of this metal, or with writing like this? Anything at all. It would probably be humming, or giving off light of some kind."

Tess shakes her head.

Sam grabs her arm. "Are you _sure_?"

Tess shrugs off her hand. "I said I didn't, didn't I?"

Sam thinks of what possible use these collars could have had for the Goa'uld. Thinks about their mindset, the games she's seen them play before. Thinks of the ways their superior technology gives them so much room to rule by fear and lies. Why rule by force when you can let the slaves be their own best jail keeper?

But there's really only one way to find out. If she stays here much longer she doesn't think it will matter one way or another.

Sam turns to look at the fence.

"It'll kill you," Tess observes, following her line of sight.

"It's already killing me," Sam says, daring to be blunt with Tess in a way she can't be with Jack.

Tess's eyes drop to Sam's trembling hand. "Yeah," she says. "Yeah, I suppose it is."

"How long do I have?" Sam asks, because it's suddenly clear in that moment that whatever is happening to her, Tess has seen it before.

Tess's lips press together. "From when the shakes start? Four days. Maybe five."

Sam has two choices. She can stay here and die, or she can run. It's not much of a decision. If she can get back to Earth, Janet can help her. Or maybe the Tok'ra. It's way more of a chance than what she has here.

"You really gonna run?" Tess asks.

"Yeah. I think so."

Tess looks impressed, if not slightly unsure of Sam's sanity. "Good luck."

Sam raises an eyebrow at her. "You just want all my stuff if I die."

"Nah," Tess says, hefting her booty. "I figure I already siphoned off all your good stuff."

Sam is startled enough to laugh. "Thank you, Tess," she says, holding out her good hand.

Tess stares at it with suspicion. "I didn't do nothing I didn't get paid for."

Sam smiles. "I would never say otherwise."

Tess reluctantly takes her hand.

* * *

By the time Tess rolls up the maps and leaves with her payment, Sam figures she has about twenty minutes left of the time Jack allotted her.

She can try to convince Jack to make a run for the symbol on the map, to come back with help, but beside the point that she doesn't think she could convince him to leave her here, she's compared the map to the marks Jack laid out from the grazer supply trip. The mystery location on the map is way too far away. She wouldn't stand a chance.

So she's back to her original assessment. They will have to get out of here together, or not at all.

It'll have to be at night. She has no doubt that if she somehow makes it, the guards wouldn't hesitate to shoot her, do anything to keep the illusion in place.

The only nagging alternative is to take the warden's house by force, to crack the safe somehow. But one more injury like the ones Jack sustained from the guards will be the end of her. She remembers the warden slapping at the device like a trained monkey. She has her doubts that he would even know how to take them off even if they could make it inside.

Finally pushing to her feet, Sam follows the stream back towards the bunkhouse. She hovers out there much longer than she should, running the variables over and over in her mind. It's the same answer every time. It's so clear, the next step, no matter how much it scares the hell out of her.

Jack is usually the one of action, the one to make the final decision, put it all into motion. It's what she's used to. In this situation though, he's hesitating, playing overly cautious. She knows why.

But the simple truth is she's dying.

Caution isn't going to change that. Fast or slow, the net effect is the same.

She stands there for a long time and it isn't until there's movement at the bunkhouse door that she realizes what she's really doing out here is waiting for him.

He turns slightly, his eyes finding her and in that moment she knows she's made the right decision. He will never let her test this hypothesis, will never admit the necessity of this risk.

Even at this distance, he must see something in her face because he takes a step towards her. He's too far away to do anything, too far to stop her.

"I'm sorry," she whispers, knowing the words can't cross the space. She backs up one step and then another, forcing herself to turn her back on him. They don't have the luxury of a goodbye just in case.

"Carter!" she hears him call out, but she doesn't pause, doesn't slow down her clumsy, loping pace as she finally hits the boundary, pulling the flimsy rope out of her way.

 _Don't you dare-!_

She steps across.

* * *

 _Her name is Shayla._

 _She is lithe, smooth in her step. Grace born of ease and youth and naiveté and not arrogant assurance. She does not know the galaxy, and it does not know her. She bends, body bowing gracefully as she removes emptied plates from before the lounging, hard-eyed Baal. She slips away, unnoticed by her god, valued for her invisibility._

 _But Kanan sees her._

 _Her eyes lift to his, a quick flash of amber before they drop away, her chin brushing her shoulder in self-conscious modesty._

 _Kanan feels a quickening, a settling sense of rightness in his chest that he catalogs as the feeling of a mark identified, a path found._

 _She will be their way in._

 _A means to an end._

 _  
_

* * *

Sam is staring at stars.

There's a rock under her shoulder and a throbbing ache in her toe, but above her, the stars are bright and steady in their unfamiliar patterns and she's surprised she's never noticed them before. Never taken that moment the whole time she's been on this planet.

"Carter!" His voice is hoarse and raw as he stumbles down next to her in a rush, his hands on her face. She feels his worry roll through her flesh, heavy waves that make her nauseous.

"I tripped," she says.

He doesn't seem to hear her, his hands still searching for injury.

"I'm okay," she says, louder this time.

Lifting her head slightly, she can see that she's made it past the trees and the tiny cemetery, well beyond the meager fence. She made it. It was a bluff.

The laughter bubbling up in her throat is unexpected, jangling discordantly against his panic. "I just tripped on a rock." Maybe she should be worrying that her reflexes are compromised, but she's too busy laughing to bother with that thought.

He thinks, _She's lost her mind_ , and maybe he's right. "Jesus, Carter."

Sitting up, a dozen dull points of pain make themselves known. She leans into him, her hands on his arms. "Clumsy maybe, but alive," she says.

His expression speaks for him, because maybe he's accepted there's no point in trying to hide. He's sitting there staring at her like a precious thing, something he's terrified to lose. "Why the _hell_ would you do that?"

"There isn't a third device," she says, words tumbling together now in her need to explain, to put it all into words, this puzzle that's been slipping into place in her mind. "It's just the two collars, nothing else, nothing tying the women to the camp. They were lying. I _can_ leave."

He's staring back at her like she's talking gibberish.

Her hands tighten on his arms. "I knew it wouldn't hurt me."

He shakes his head. "Carter, that was _stupid_. I never would have-."

"I know," she says. He would have ordered her to stay the hell away from the fence if he'd thought there'd been a need. Just one more thing between them she would have had to break. "I'm sorry. It was the only way."

He seems to struggle with something for a moment, but the next thing she knows, he's pulling her tight into his arms. "I swear to God, Carter," he says. "You're going to be the death of me."

She knows exactly what he means.

He pulls back, one hand lifting to her cheek. "Feel like letting me in on the rest of your plan now?"

"The naquadah," she says, pushing the notebook into his hands. "I know where it's going."

Taking the book from her, he studies the maps while she fills him in on the connections she's made.

"We can make it," she says. They have to.

Jack glances at the sky. "It's already getting late. We should wait until tomorrow night, get a good head start."

Sam touches his arm. "No," she says, trying to keep her voice even. "We can't wait. I'm not…" She trails off, clearing her throat. "I'm not going to get better, Jack." It's the closest she's gotten to admitting the truth to him.

He looks down at her hand, and then up to her face, searching for something there. "Yeah, okay."

She waits while he runs back for their things, for their carefully hoarded supplies. She doesn't allow herself to think of the days wasted, the time abandoned to fear and lies. She only has eyes for the desert.

Jack reappears, gives her a small pack. He shoulders most of the water himself, shooting her a look that burns against her skin when she doesn't protest the coddling. There's no time for playing down her weaknesses.

"Let's go," she says, holding out a hand for him to help her to her feet.

She looks back once and catches sight of a single dark form standing by the stream. For a moment panic rises in her chest, alarm that they've been seen, but then the figure shifts, one hand lifting in the sky, moonlight catching the figure's face. It's Tess.

Maybe knowing she isn't really trapped will be enough for her, Sam thinks. Maybe that will be enough for the illusion to start unraveling.

They stare at each other across the moonlit space until Sam lifts her hand in response.

Turning back to Jack, she takes his arm, watching the ground in front of her carefully.

They are getting out of here.

It isn't a lie.


	6. Chapter 6

Day Sixteen

They've been walking for two days.

It's been a dangerous dance of trying to hide the rapid escalation of her condition and keeping one step ahead of the vicious will of the desert.

A buzz is building in her ears, a soft hush of sound increasing with time along with the softening of objects. She can't see much past Jack's back anymore. Can't even hear his thoughts so much above the avalanche of noise. And it takes every ounce of concentration to just keep moving.

They rest during the brightest part of the day, finding whatever scrap of shade they can. Jack is leaning back against a small outcropping, Sam's head resting on his thigh as she stretches out in the thin strip of shadow. She's exhausted, her body aching with fatigue and what she suspects is a fever, but sleep doesn't come. Jack's fingers are gentle in her hair, trailing soothingly and not even his touch can quiet it enough to sleep anymore.

"You're going to be okay," he says, but she doesn't know which one of them he is trying to convince anymore.

She turns her face into his leg, tries to believe it, but she can feel the numbness beginning to set in to her limbs, knows what it means. Right now she can't see past whether or not she'll be able to get to her feet again when the time comes to move on.

She manages to sleep after all, because the next time she opens her eyes, the sky is bleeding orange as the sun dips down towards the horizon. The heat has finally broken and she feels strangely light, pushing herself up into a sitting position. Next to her, Jack still dozes on.

"Sam."

She turns at the sound of the familiar voice and there he is, standing underneath a spreading tree with sun-bleached, leafless branches. He's wearing a beige sweater and it's hard to pick him out from his surroundings, like he's just a little blurred around the edges.

"Daniel," she breathes.

He smiles at her and the familiar gesture lodges like a point of fire in her chest. "You need to hold on, Sam."

The gentle understanding in his gaze is too much. She feels weary tears burning in her eyes. "I'm so tired."

"I know," he says, and she thinks maybe somehow he actually does. "But you have to hold on a little longer. You're almost there."

"I'm not sure I can," she confesses, the words she can never say to Jack.

Daniel's kneeling next to her now, so close that she can see each fine line fanning out from his relentless, piercing gaze. "You can do this, Sam. You're one of the strongest people I've ever known."

"Daniel," she says, reaching for him only for her stomach to drop like she's stepped off the edge of a cliff. With a jerk, she jolts awake.

"Carter?"

She's staring up at stars, still lying against Jack, her head pillowed on his thigh.

"You okay?" His hand is cool on her brow.

She takes a deep breath, releasing it slowly. "Yeah," she says, pushing up to a seated position, fighting against the resulting dizziness. "We should get going."

Jack stands, offering his hands to her.

Somehow, she finds her feet one more time.

* * *

 _She's running through the forest. The ground is mush under her feet, sucking at her momentum, but they can't stop. They have to make it to the gate._

" _Kanan," Shayla whispers from behind, panic rising in her voice._

 _The Jaffa are gaining on them._

" _Hush," Sam says, tightening her grip on Shayla's hand. "We're going to make it. We're going to make it."_

 _They just have to keep moving._

 _  
_

* * *

Day Seventeen

False dawn lights the valley in cool blues, purple shadows clinging to the edge of objects like bruises in the low light. Nestled into the depression among the ragged peaks is a small collection of buildings.

Sam's eyes find the central building, trying to gauge the height. Big enough to house a Stargate, Jack had noted before he'd slipped down into the valley on his own. She tries to find movement, to memorize the lay out of the buildings, but she just can't focus. She closes her eyes against the glare, the swirling objects. At long last the pain is dulling, seeping away. She thinks this probably isn't a good thing.

She drifts, not sleeping exactly, just losing ground. Time, like many things, is slipping away from her.

"Sam." It's not the first time he's said it, she registers as she feels his fingers on her face, his urgency echoing in her mind. "Sam."

 _open your damn eyes_

She opens her eyes.

"Time to go," he says.

 _shit, she's running out of time_

"Jack," she says.

His gaze sharpens, a jolt of worry rolling into her bones, clearing her head just enough. "Can you do this?" he asks, giving her the critical look he's been denying himself for days. He hadn't wanted to predict if she would make it this far.

 _too many damn days wasted_

She licks her lips, pulling everything together for the last push, Daniel's words adding to the chatter in her mind. _You're one of the strongest people I've ever known_.

"Do I have a choice?" she asks.

"No," Jack says, his hands moving to her arms, pulling her to her feet. "You don't have a choice."

 _accept no other outcome_

He has a weapon in his hand and she doesn't know how it got there or where he's taking her, just follows the tug of his fingers, the urgency in his voice.

She can't let them down.

 _one foot in front of the other_

When they finally get inside one of the buildings, there are bodies and debris, but she only has eyes for the Stargate. She leans against a crate as Jack dials the DHD.

 _here the whole damn time, just out of reach_

She's stuck staring as the waters bloom out into the room, cool blue in a world of grit.

Jack guides her up the rudimentary ramp, his mind hesitating even as his steps don't. "What if it interrupts the signal or something?" he asks, his fingers squeezing her shoulder as his thumb sweeps along the top of her collar.

"It won't," she says with the total confidence of a Stargate expert.

She could be lying. She isn't sure anymore.

"It won't," he agrees, voice hard and unyielding.

She tries to pretend she can't feel the way his hand touches her cheek— _just in case—don'tyoudaredieonmeCarter_ —biting back words that would only sound like defeat. Or is that just cowardice?

She may lean into the touch, just the slightest bit. Or maybe her balance is compromised. She can't be sure.

And she's in the water, body slicing through surface tension. Freedom.

There's a moment where she thinks she won't ever be put back together again—too fractured, containment failing—but then her feet hit the ramp, knees buckling.

She tries to take a step, but her leg isn't listening anymore, everything tilting and falling, adrenaline failing.

Hands and arms and knees hitting the grate.

 _staywithmedammit_

His eyes, steady. Trapping hers to his. There is nothing else. Only this strange, sharp lucidity.

Is this death?

"Jack," she whispers.

She falls.

* * *

 _The light cuts into her, the hum threatening to shred her mind into unrecognizable, mutated shards—a mess no king's men can ever put back together again. The walls press in on her, closing wounds, patching holes, bringing her closer to life only to serve her up to death. Again._

 _It has to end. Please, God, let there be an end._

 _Please._

 _  
_

* * *

The pain is even worse, if possible, the next time she wakes. Not physical, not specific. Elemental.

It's wrong. More wrong than usual.

Sounds are slow and stilted, the motions of those around her chaotic and brittle, and Sam can't quite focus on any one thing. She's drowning in meaningless sights and sounds—fire radiating down her spine. There's a rapid high-pitched beep somewhere and hands on her and she can't shake them off no matter how much she struggles and the tone of everything changes, pitching into pure panic.

She can't breathe.

 _Carter._

She doesn't notice the hands on her cheeks or the face looming above her until the clear, solid thought manages to rise above everything else.

 _It's okay, Carter._

The words are like the clean peal of a bell sounding in her mind. His thoughts are calm and whole and she grabs onto them as best she can, her eyes finally focusing on Jack's face leaning in just above hers.

 _Take a deep breath._

She tries to follow the command, sucking in air.

 _That's it, Carter. Just keep looking at me._

There's the blur of movement around him, distorted sounds assaulting her ears, but she ignores them, concentrating on his face. The momentary calm gives her just enough time to realize the truth, make sense of the chaos.

I'm going to die, she thinks.

It takes an amazing amount of effort, but she manages to move her arm in his direction, a clumsy, uncontrolled flop of movement, but it's enough for him to notice. She feels him take her hand. She tries to squeeze his fingers, doesn't know if the command is covering the distance, but it's _important_.

There are things she wants to say, things she doesn't know why she didn't while she still had the chance, but all that dribbles out is his name and maybe not even that. His face contracts, contorting slightly in confusion, or sadness, or maybe just distorted by her mind.

 _Carter_ , he thinks and she feels it, is so glad to feel it one last time. Affection, need, and that inescapable yearning—even more that she can't quite let herself force into words. She tries to answer with her eyes, one last attempt to prove he's wrong. He's so wrong about her.

 _Hold on, Carter._

She's not sure she can.

He looks away for a moment, his lips moving and then head nodding. His fingers tighten on her face as he leans down over her again.

 _You're just going to go to sleep for a little while, until we get this thing figured out._

She's being pulled down, something soft and indistinct and tempting after so much struggle. She loses sight of his face as the darkness creeps in, but she can still feel the firm grasp of his fingers, his voice in her head.

 _I will fix this, Carter._

It's a pledge, a promise, but she's pretty sure it's not up to him any longer.

And then even his voice is gone.

.fin.

 _rusted wheel planted still  
rusted wheel can't move on  
and it feels just like the ground  
but trapped in another way  
just still in the ground_

-'Rusted Wheel' by Silversun Pickups


End file.
